My Thoughts and Comments: Dancing on the Head of a Needle Dept.

Ann Marie Lipinski, senior vice president and editor of the Chicago Tribune, conceded that the newspaper industry needs to formulate a strategy to confront the realities of an Internet world in her speech at the Ruhl Lecture hosted by the University of Oregon (see previous entry). At the same time, she said that the industry is facing reduced advertising dollars, rising news printing cost, reduced circulation and investor disenchantment and disillusionment. Once again the newspaper industry refuses to recognize the behavior of their competition, namely the major networks and their local affiliates and the cable news are already providing their content to the Web-surfing public for free. Worse, the industry has yet to grasp the demographics of the Internet using community and, for many newspapers, their dependency on local or regional audience. According to Internet World Stats, the Internet has achieved a 68.6 percent penetration into the US Market, which means 68.6 percent of the American population has access to the news through the Internet, unlike Spain which has only 38.7 percent penetration.

By dependency on local or regional audience, I mean that a newspaper in Eugene Oregon would principally focus its coverage on news in Eugene and its surrounding municipalities and therefore its audience are people living in that area. The core problem is that local newspapers are competing online against the local affiliates. This means that if one refuses to provide their online edition for free users would simply turn elsewhere for their informational needs. To compound the 21st Century business model of local newspapers, the major national news organizations like CNN, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or International Herald Tribune would also provide coverage on major stories happening in that city like the Enron trials in Houston or the Conrad Black case in Chicago. Speaking of Conrad Black, the former Canadian media mogul, as of Thursday 25th May 2006, I have yet to see any reporting in The Oregonian, Portland’s major daily. Yet, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Canada’s Globe and Mail, many Canadian local daily newspapers and Business Week all provide reporting on the Black case. Consequently people in distant places no longer have to rely on the local newspaper for information on major local stories. In comparison, national newspapers address a significantly larger audience because of their focus on important national, international and world business stories. As a result, these newspapers sacrifice the interests of local communities in favor of reaching the affluent readers with broader interests. Furthermore, these newspapers have access to foreign markets because their broader coverage. More importantly, these newspapers face a very limited competition, namely CNN and BBC and not too much more. As a result, these newspapers can also levee a user fee for their Internet-edition.

Lipinski on Thursday refuses to address the survival of newspapers in her speech or the question and answer session aftwerwards concerning a business model completely dependent on advertising dollars. In other words, I fear that the print edition of local daily newspapers, especially in smaller markets, would soon become free newspapers, like so many other publications. However, I believe that the demise of community reporting in favor of major national, state and international news may once again restore profitability to newspaper chains and re-establish newspapers as a window for the reading public to the world. The network and cable news only cover major national and international stories and the local affiliates cover news in the immediate area. This begs the question: who is covering major state stories like the proceedings at the state legislature or state appellate courts? My advice to editors today would be to fire the obituary writer, reassign the beat reporters to cover city hall, county commissions, the governor, the state legislature and public policy issues. I say let the broadcast news bottom-feed the local stories.