Print Media In The Trash, Literally!
OK, not the trash, the recycling dumpster :
The above is a lot of unread papers. The fact is more and more people don’t read the paper — oh we stay informed just not via a daily, weekly or monthly print paper. With the rise of the internet papers are struggling to retain readers and advertising revenue.
At SLU we can get a paper everyday for free – St Louis Post-Dispatch, USA Today & The New York Times. Free!
No thanks. Reading a paper takes too much room to open it up, you get ink on your hands, you have to recycle it when done and you can’t do easy searches or save PDF’s for future reference. Many of my fellow students seem to agree.
I read stories in the Post-Dispatch & New York Times daily online along with the websites of other print media. Of course I also read many web-only sites. You can even get the funnies online these days.
The printed paper is making a slow exit. The final edition will soon be the final edition. The Post-Dispatch, our only daily paper since the Globe-Democrat ceased publication 22 years ago this month, recently laid off 20 more workers. I’d link to their story but their links don’t last – so here is the news from the St Louis Business Journal.
It may take 20 years but in time I think many cities will not have a daily print paper. Niche papers that are weekly or monthly will continue for some time but eventually they too will find the productions costs outweigh the advertising revenue.
The upshot may be a reduction in trash. The sidewalks will be free of the various news stand boxes. The downside is strangers in a cafe won’t be overheard saying, “Can you pass me the sports section when you done?”
Just as cities adopted to electric lighting instead of gas lamps & candles, they will adjust to lacking a daily print edition. The transition will certainly be less destructive than going from horse & carriage to the private automobile.
I just received a call from the Post-Dispatch last night! That makes three in three weeks. I think they’re trying to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic as I agree, papers are on their way out. Maybe the strangers in the café will begin saying: “What book are you reading?”
Hopefully the print media can adapt and overcome and discover new ways to become profitable. Now if we can do something about plastic bags then we’ll really be making progress.
It looks like the Riverfront Times has shrunk significantly this week – both in the number and the size of their pages . . .
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I basically agree with your conclusions. Remember, too, that a paper’s primary role is not news but advertising. If the advertisers continue to find enough eyes to justify their expenditures, the print media will continue. The online media faces similar challenges – we’re used to getting it for free, with minimal advertising, so to fund any significant newsgathering operation, absent a parallel income stream, will be a challenge for them, as well.
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I do have mixed feelings on the likely demise of the printed word. The odds of finding unintended nuggets is greater when you have to scan past them on every page, but I’m also no fan of the physical volume of paper that is/should be recycled. My current solution is online during the week and the Sunday paper in print on the weekend . . .
The sad fact is that the P-D does very little real reporting any more. Most stories I see in the paper (I read it daily) were somewhere on the internet a few days earlier.
Truth be told, I buy it for the comic section. That’s the one thing that is difficult to get on line.
Sorry, Steve, but your argument ignores both the importance of newspapers and the desire for humans to have something tactile in their hands. Yes, circulation has shrunk, but you seem to champion the demise of newspapers and their role in a democracy.
I don’t like seeing stacks of unused papers around everywhere, trash cans filled with them, messes made on public streets, the metrolink covered, etc. I’d be happy if we could transition to the electronic paper more quickly. There’s no reason these papers couldn’t advertise on their sites- I’d be glad to look at a few ads in exchange for relevant, timely, interesting news. I actually read all the ads in the RFT just to get an idea of the places I’d like to go in town, especially concerts.
This is another obvious case where the government should step in and save the papers and the jobs of the printers that print them as well as the jobs of the people that deliver and sell them. Just as something should have been done to save the job of the candlestick maker and stable owners and blacksmiths in the past. What a shame that those industries were lost causing the collapse of the economy and creating the lowest standard of living in recorded history.
Let’s not forget the most important issue at risk here…ever try to wrap up your fish and chips in a laptop? The vinegar shorts everything out. Yes, very messy, indeed.
CWE Guy…The Post has, in recent months, done an excellent job of exposing financial waste. There was the story last Sunday about the lawyers cashing in on Illinois’ death penalty cases and let’s not forget the whole towing scandal.
I also think you are painting people with a very broad brush, Steve. I am in my mid-20s and a lot of my peers are like me: we are sick of seeing people tied to electronic devices everywhere they go, be it ipods, blackberry’s or laptops. I’ve never had a newspaper crash on me once.
I have to agree with Karen. I am in my 20’s and always prefer the newspaper to electronic news. I find out so much more as I read articles I come across while flipping through, ones that I would not have seen or clicked on when online. I also think it is important for my kids to see me reading the newspaper in the morning rather than staring at a computer. And it is very frustrating to have a newspaper in the classroom and my students don’t even know how it is organized. I think that is a shame. Everytime I bring a newspaper in, the kids love flipping through, so I guess there is hope.
I prefer to read the printed Post-Dispatch news during breakfast. It’s more convenient than trying to find articles in the on-line edition. And if necessary, I can share sections with my wife. The problem comes with the Saturday edition where it’s all lumped together: Main news+Metro. My wife and I both like to read the comics and do the Jumble at lunchtime so occasionally I’ve had to cut that section in half!
BTW, if you want to keep a copy of printed news on you computer the way to do it is to find the on-line version and save it as a tinyurl. I’ll provide further information if you need it off-line.
Finally, congratulations on the recognition you’re continuing to receive for your lively and informative blog, especially after your major setback early this year. I hope you make a full recovery. Trikes await your inspection when you do!
Newspaperman – The Post-Dispatch is more of an inhibitor to democracy than anything. Americans are tired of the mainstream media telling us what to think and the Post-Dispatch is a shining example of that. If the Post were truly democratic, its ideology wouldn’t lean so far to the left. It’d be more moderate and in sync with that of the demographic.
Technology will enable the replacement of the physical paper sooner rather than later. Flexible substrate technology will create digital papers that are the same size format and enable you to swipe to change pages…
Until newspapers to include the P-D view the internet as an opportunity vice a threat, more and more of its employees will be fired. If they want to save the company, they need to get their heads out of their bottoms.
I bought a Sony Reader about six months ago, and have barely touched a “dead tree” book since then. In fact, I’ve read dozens of fabulous books which I download free from Gutenburg Project. I’d be glad to buy more current books also, but unfortunately the current pricing formula is to charge just a little less than you do for a printed book, even though you’ve eliminated most of the cost. No thanks, I’ll go to the library.
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Ultimately, paper newspapers will be obsolete, just as paper books will. While an appropriate device doesn’t exist yet, it can’t be more than a few years away. Meanwhile, I just read ’em online.
Keep in mind that all the comments here are being posted by people with access to computers. The death of newsprint would deny many older people who don’t have computers, can’t afford them or don’t want them the access to a lot of local news that they can’t get from a 30-second blurb on TV or which the electronic media doesn’t feel is important enough to include.
Financial reality creates a middle ground? I was in Louisville, KY, over the weekend, and their paper, the Courier-Journal, has shrunken significantly in page size, down to a mini-me version of what the paper used to look like (probably 2″ narrower and 3″ shorter). This obviously consumes less resources. Unfortunately, it also leaves less room for news . . .
I now this is an older post, but I wanted to let you know that the Post is no longer being delivered to schools. They offer a free log-in for each student to read an online version. I know it will save trees but I am very sad about it!!!