It's Our City is a project that uses TV, Radio and Web
to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Phila DN tops list of "Most Endangered" Newspapers list
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 7:37 am - by Matt Campbell. Filed under: Community.
The Philadelphia Daily News tops a stock investors’ blog of the 10 newspapers most likely to close or go digital over the next 18 months. The blog 24/7 Wall Street says it looked at the financial strength of the newspapers’ parent companies, the amount of direct competition that they face in their markets, and industry information on how much money they are losing. Here’s the blog’s reasoning.
The Philadelphia Daily News. The smaller of the two papers owned by The Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which recently filed for bankruptcy. The parent company says it will make money this year, but with newspaper advertising still falling sharply, the city cannot support two papers and the Dally News has a daily circulation of only about 100,000. The tabloid has a small staff, most of which could probably stay on at Philly.com, the web operation for both of the city dailies.
I hope the Phila DN (soon to be an edition of the Inky) doesn’t close, because that’s where It’s Our City gets a lot of its news. So Brian Tierney, please find more money ASAP. Of course, just because a blog says it could close doesn’t mean it will. But still, the newspaper industry hasn’t found a way to monetize readers who are quickly migrating to the Internet.
That’s the part that is most maddening. People still read newspapers, but they do it online where it’s “free.” The problem with the Internet is that there are so many choices to find news. Meanwhile advertisers aren’t willing to pay the big bucks for Web ads. How many online ads have you clicked through lately? So, until print journalism can figure out how to solve that problem, it even places like Philly.com are in the same boat.
So, I again pose the question that Stu Bykofsky raised recently, of whether newspapers should lock up their websites and begin charging a subscription fee. I think it’s a wise idea. If we want investigative and in-depth journalism, we’ll need to pay for it and support it. What do you think? If we don’t, all journalism will come via blogs, and then you’ll have to sift through thousands of blogs to figure out which ones are fact-based and which ones have hidden agendas.
It’s clear that younger people favor the Web. So, I hope newspapers start beefing up their online staffs, put a tollbooth out, and start getting back to the business of journalism. I know that this is all easier said than done, but the writing is on the wall.
Maybe instead of an all-out subscription we could follow the pay-per-view model. Take how I got this “10 Most Endangered” list as an example. I got an e-mail this morning from blogger Brad Linder, who sent me a link to Mark Pott’s blog that has a link to a Time Mag online story, which had a link to the 24/7 Wall Street blog. If I hit a pay wall somewhere along that chain, I would be willing to pay a small per story fee (25 cents) to get it.
Your thoughts? Pay-per-view? Charge for all of Philly.com? Other ideas?
March 10th, 2009 at 9:21 am
People will pay for quality online journalism, like the WSJ.
However, when the product is a low quality piece of garbage like the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, no one in their right mind will pay for it. Both papers are full of sloppy journalism and errors.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:17 am
BV, except remember how no one would pay for the NY Times columns, op-eds, and archives? They caved in and made it all free. I don’t think of the NY Times as full of sloppy journalism and errors…Jayson Blair incident aside.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Alan,
I gotta say that in that chain you described, as soon as I came to the pay wall, that’s where my journey into those links would end. I can always find someone else who decided to write about the 10 most likely newspapers to close but who also decided to share it for free. Heck, writing about the demise of newspapers seems to be the one thing that newspaper blogs cover the most.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:02 am
1- Are the Wall Street geniuses who made this assessment the same crew who created our recession?
2- The NYTimes had 100,000 subscribers for Times Select and took in $10 mil a year. Why they wihdrew from charging in beyond rational explanation.
3- BV just has a grudge. Someone probably once threw his home delivery in the bushes.
4- NPR is heading toward the web, but its CEO said (on WHYY) “somebody has to pay.”
Grow up, boys and girls, the free ride is just about over.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Of course it’s time to start charging for papers online. If one is a regular “news” blog reader, one knows that these individuals get most of their information from newspapers. Sometimes, after a little digging, they’ll use other sources and their own opinions to beef up the blog. For the most part, blogs couldn’t exist without the newspapers. If we want unbiased news, we’ll have to start charging for it. If we want writers who have access to information, who have the connections to the movers and shakers and write well about them, we’ll have to pay for it. Otherwise, all we’ll end up with is froth and blather and a confused and ill-informed citizenry.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
the over-leveraged, debt laden enterprises are dead. they just dont know it yet.
the quality of the newspapers has been pathetic for decades. now that the distribution monopoly is gone(hello internet) readers have increasing options. they are leaving. and wont be back.
welcome our new, somewhat chaotic for now, overlords of citizen journlism.