Things That Won’t Survive, Part 1 (Update)
Simple Justice: I received an email that cuts are happening at the New York Times. Reporters are being quietly told that they should look for new jobs now, because they won’t have jobs come next spring. At the same time, cost-cutting at all levels has become the rule, with delivery to more distant places discontinued. After all, who needs to deliver a newspaper when there’s nothing left in it but an editorial and some supermarket advertisements.
The cost of paper has skyrocketed. Energy costs are through the roof. And the people who go out and investigate and report on the news still need to get paid. If you keep them on. If you don’t, then there’s a huge savings. It just means that there won’t be any news in the newspaper.
This is bad. Technology combined with spiraling costs spells huge changes for the “dead trees” media. If the FCC would let it happen, television news would be replaced with Survivor #47 in a flash. While readers view the press as a right, media owners have to remember that they’re a business, and they have to make enough money to pay the bills.
Already, changes in newspapers are happening, though slow enough to escape notice of most people. Not those who work there, who are painfully aware that the Woodward/Bernstein days are mere nostalgia, but those of us who read their product. Fewer articles amidst the pages of advertising. And the advertisers know it too, as they realize they can target their audience much easier on the internet, and at far lower cost.
This is bad. While readers (like me) enjoy the ready availability of free access to news across the spectrum on demand, there’s no business model that makes it work for the producers of news. I read at will, and there’s…