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What’s Really Killing Newspapers
They’re no longer the best providers of social currency.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Friday, Aug. 1, 2008, at 6:34 PM ET
The last thing the unwell newspaper industry needs is another diagnosis of what ails it—so here goes!
Not that long ago, the daily newspaper was an indispensable coiner of social currency, and it gave its readers piles of the stuff in each edition. The phrase, which comes from sociology, is often used to describe the information we acquire and then trade—or give away—to start, maintain, and nurture relationships with our fellow humans.
Take, for instance, the voluminous results of newspaper sports pages. Terrific for sports fans, of course, but the sports pages have been used to grease sales calls, break ice on first dates, and fuel water-cooler bonding for a century. Even folks who don’t care for sports skimmed the sports pages for a little something about the games and athletes so they could engage in essential small-talk.
A recent Associated Press study, “A New Model of News” (PDF), speaks directly to the social currency concept. The news can “be used in a variety of interpersonal situations—to look smart, connect with friends and family and even move up the socio-economic ladder” and “maintain relationships.”
The social networking that takes place via instant messaging, microblogging, or e-mail further steals from newspapers the mindshare they once owned. You no longer need to rely on a paper for the social currency that a weather report, movie listings, classified ads, shopping bargains, sports info, stock listings, television listings, gossip, or entertainment news provide. As falling circulation indicates, fewer do. And the newspaper isn’t the only media hub suffering in the new era. Radio, which once served a similar social role with its menu of music, news, and talk, is plummeting.
What’s the cure for the newspaper’s malady? As if I knew! Just count this as my small contribution to Adrian Monck’s finding that the decline of newspapers has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with the changing world.
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I’ve started using Google reader to handle my new interest in following blogs and other sites. Now many sites have that little rss feed button in their address bar. The Google reader helps me keep my reading interests sorted into various folders, and I can follow more news and information sources than ever before. Through Google reader i get lists of the article names and can pick and choose among them. I also have set Firefox to open 5 newspapers at one time, so I can quickly get very opinionated about just about everything.
I’ve almost reached the point where I no longer care to give my newspapers a thorough read, although there remains a lingering desire to sit in my easy chair with the paper in my lap, while i get a news fix from cable stations.
If i could only read my laptop in bed life would be perfect, except for wife issues about that.
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