If the newspaper industry were a horse, we’d take it out back and shoot it.
Each day 10 million trees are cut down worldwide to make paper. It’s true not all of this goes into newspapers, and some is recycled, but collectively, newspapers use a huge share of this resource. There is an environmental as well as a dollar cost associated with the journey newsprint makes from the forest to the front porch and on to the landfill or recycling center. Lumber mills, paper manufactures, ink producers, warehouses, press rooms, newspaper delivery, recycling plants, landfills, each of these steps consume fossil fuels and emit pollution into our air. Each requires buildings that need to be heated and cooled.
It makes no sense to continue this expensive and environmentally damaging process every day to provide a product that can be delivered electronically and eliminate the entire process mentioned above.
We’ve attacked the manufacturing industry for polluting our air and water, and we’ve gone after the tobacco industry for polluting our lungs. There is no reason that the information industry needs to create such a heavy-handed carbon footprint.
Newspapers claim they cannot be allowed to fail because they are the watchdogs of democracy. Whenever a corporate giant uses fear as its primary argument I question the motive.
Newspapers are an industry. Journalism is a profession. They are not inseparable. The newspaper industry consists of a number of corporations with local offices that accommodate journalists, sales staff, secretarial staff, management, press room, loading docks and parking lots.
Many local newspapers have large corporate offices, typically in another city. These offices have to be maintained. They house secretarial staff, marketing people, accountants, more managers and or course highly paid executives. Then there are the stockholders — those who hope to cash in on the profitability of an industry to feather their nests for the golden years. Investors have a never-ending thirst for ever greater profits. If we don’t get them, we’ll pick up our marbles and go play somewhere else. And don’t forget, the corporations’ primary legal financial responsibility is to shareholders. That’s in direct conflict with serving the public interest.
The cost of supporting the newspaper industries infrastructure is staggering. There’s a lot at stake. Jobs, history, momentum, investments, the ripple effect to other industries — the list goes on.
Most of that has very little to do with journalism and everything to do with the newspaper industry being profitable.
We’ve come to a time where electronic delivery of quickly changing information such as news and advertising specials are clearly far superior to the printed page.
Those fighting the change are those who are most invested in the status quo. I see editors, publishers and CEOs going on national talk shows peddling the fear of change. Who will you be able to trust? Who will fund the big stories if newspapers disappear? They trot out the fear card.
Newspaper executives tell us we need them. They huddle in closed-door meetings trying to figure out how to squeeze more money from the public.
The answers aren’t as difficult as they would have us believe and not nearly as scary.
Who can we turn to? We can turn to journalists, the same professionals who’ve been observing and reporting the news for longer than any of us have been around. They no longer need the printed page. They are no longer shackled by press schedules.
Who will pay for the expensive stories? A huge national story may cost a million dollars to cover. It doesn’t require a multibillion-dollar industry to come up with an occasional million bucks. The part that you don’t hear is that a big story also sells. And that may help offset the costs. It can be factored in, just as an insurance company uses actuarial tables to determine premiums.
The Internet has proved it can provide news faster, to a greater number of readers and at a lower cost, without being saddled with the cost of creating that carbon footprint, and the need for the enormous infrastructure. With those realities factored in, there is no need to charge for content, and advertisers should be able to purchase ads at rates lower than newspapers charge. With ad rates lower, more advertisers can participate.
In that scenario everyone wins, except those still trying to ride that poor old horse.
