In recent weeks, the blogoverse and mainstream media have been full of stories on the fiscal woes of newspapers, and are mourning the seemingly imminent demise of several well-known publications, and an institution that predates our republic.
It’s been a long time since I bought the dead-tree version of a newspaper, or even touched one (other than picking them up off the floor at the door of my hotel room) for that matter. My diet of news and commentary comes almost exclusively from online sources these days (including the websites of traditional newspapers).
I do share the concerns being raised about potential demise of local, professional journalism. After all, if local newspapers die, local newspapers can’t pay local reporters to cover local newspapers. Some of the slack can be picked up by amateur citizen journalists, true… but I do have to admit that I wade through a lot of dreck online to find the rare instance of adequate reporting or commentating.
I do think there is still some value in the content of newspapers…and even hardcopy has it’s place. One of the sites I visit 6 days a week, for example, is the Wall Street Journal’s links to stories in the printed paper, since I will invariably find a couple of interesting articles that cover subjects which don’t percolate up among the RSS feeds I follow, or the surfing I do. I admit that the newspaper subscriptions available for Amazon’s Kindle
I don’t think we’re going to necessarily see the end of the local newspaper. However, I think it’s a given that the hometown daily will evolve.
The first town I lived in after college was Enterprise, Alabama. It’s one of three satellite towns surrounding Fort Rucker (the Army’s aviation school), and it has a population of about 20,000. It also has a town newspaper, the Enterprise Ledger, published five times a week (Tuesday-Friday and Sunday, if memory serves).
Enterprise and Coffee County aren’t large enough to really support a daily newspaper, even before considering competition from the ’net. What makes the Ledger possible is its association with the Dothan Eagle. You go buy a copy of the one-section Ledger, and inside is the four-section Eagle. The Eagle gets a broader audience than it would otherwise, and the Ledger is able to attract readers as well.
The woes of so many large newspapers have reminded me of the Ledger/Eagle relationship. Perhaps this is a model that can be followed. I can easily imagine the newspaper landscape of the country evolving to where there are a handful of national or regional dailies, all offering local supplements.
Of course, hasn’t such a model been predicted already by folks like Michael J. Fox and Steven Spielberg?
