Yesterday was a bad day for the newspaper business. A bad day for Philadelphia in particular. Two large profit making corporations decided to increase those profits, and make massive cuts in staff.
Back in March, Dan Gillmor predicted:
...if newspaper companies don't start working right now, is the following: Profits will dwindle to a point where Wall Street demands higher profits (or kills the stock price, making even a good newspaper company vulnerable to takeover by one of the real sharks out there). This will set off a death spiral of firing staff, losing readers and advertisers, firing more staff and so on. It will not be a slow process once it starts.
That self defeatest death spiral was evident yesterday as The New York Times announced cutting 500 jobs while Knight Ridder decided to buyout, or cut the staffs at the Daily News and Inquirer for up to 100 positions.
It's pretty obvious to me that the functions that newspapers provide have not lost value over the years - simply their distribution mechanism. Their media. That distribution mechanism has permitted them to earn a profit, while in many, many ways, providing a service vital to the public - to our communities - and to democracy itself.
The value that can de derived from newspaper media - from its distribution - has dropped off as new forms of media have come to supplant it that can be provided to consumers quicker and easier. Blogs and online magazines, with RSS and Atom as delivery mechanisms are a major case in point here. Craigslist is another.
Jay Rosen in "Laying the Newspaper Gently Down to Die" said:
...getting newspaper journalism across the divide means a big investment now in the Net and its emerging forms. It requires a wave of Research & Development. It means re-training your people, and taking on "newsroom cultures that discourage innovation, don’t reward risk-taking and drive out many of the best and brightest younger journalists, all of whom entered the profession aware of the paltry pay scale." (From Tim Porter.)Newspapers, in the words of Mark Malone, would have to "accept reality and metamorphize into real Web presences rather than merely online downloads of their print copy."
Vinyl record meet Compact Disk. Meet your your death maker. But the music survived didn't it? It's clear that the services and the expertise to produce those services should survive. But the delivery device is ready to die. Can they make it across the divide? To provide those services in this new medium? Many don't believe so. Yesterday gives those folks some credence.
In the face of that however, there are efforts being driven by forward thinkers across the country - out of newsrooms and online staffs - to try and bridge this gulf. They do it in the face of naysayers internal and external. Folks that either believe in the 'old way' of business, folks out to squeeze as many bucks from as few resources as possible, and sadly folks that want to see them fail because they are a perceived threat.
Notably the folks in Greesboro, NC's "News & Record" have gotten major credit for their efforts - and folks here in Philly deserve some of the same.
The Daily News and Will Bunch, with Attytood have a political blog that is among the best in the region and the country. Emerging in the comments at Attytood is a community of folks passionate about the subject matter and communication flows back and forth as it does in the very best examples of blogging I know of. The Daily News has also blazed a trail with Philly Feed - the first newspaper produced podcast in the country.
The Inquirer has been busy too, with various blogging efforts over the past year, many of which were overly cautious, or efforts to learn about the form. The best of these is Blinq, by Dan Rubin, who gets it - and I wish - I wish - the staff at the Inquirer would just pay attention to what he has done at his under promoted site.
From reverse publishing, to linking outbound, to having a blogroll that includes non newspaper blogs in the community - to having a personal voice - Dan Rubin and Will Bunch show the Daily News and Inquirer *can* bridge the new media/blogging gulf. But will the staffs at either paper, at Philly.com, and importantly at Knight Ridder, their corporate masters recognize that in time?
Another, notable, positive sign is the launch of Daniel McQuade's Philadelphia Will Do by the Philadelphia Weekly. Dan has been a long time blogger himself and brings that knowledge into the Philadelphia Weekly newsroom. I expect great things from it.
It should be noted that the City Paper and Philadelphia Weekly have far less institutional baggage than the Inquirer and Daily News - they should already have established blogs. Dan's is a great - but late - start. Where are the others? What about City Paper?
Speaking of other local media, one interesting beta we have spied is Philly EDGE by the folks at PhillyBurbs.com and Calkins Media (Bucks County Courier Times, Burlington County Times, The Intelligencer). It looks very intriguing. I think they are onto something there.
I'm going to append to this piece various reactions in our community to what's happening at the Inky and Daily News. Please post in the comments follow-ups.
Philadelphia Will Do: Update: 75 from Inky, 25 from Daily News: posted internal DN and Inky memos announcing layoffs.
Now from our for-profit blogging cousins:
Philebrity: PNI To Chop 100 From Staff; Dead Weight Sure To Remain: Leaked memos, buyout options and like whoa, it all seems to be adding to a new double-A-side single called "Don’t Let The Door Hit You In You In The Ass" b/w "So You Wanna Be A Blog 'N' Roll Star." Seriously, we hear Typepad is gearing up for some big signups.
John Carroll at Phillyist: Inquirer and Daily News Throwing Pity Cash at Staff: The Inquirer wants to lose 75 staffers through the buyouts while the Daily News would like to cut 25 staff members. We're not sure if this applies to the Inquirer and Daily News bloggers, but that would be pretty cool if it did: with most big media outlets riding the blog train, we need something new and hilarious (and we don't think The Early Word counts). So, buyouts would be fun: not because we like seeing people lose their jobs, but because we like it when blogs are treated seriously.
More at Editor & Publisher: Philly Vets Stalberg and Roberts Lament Buyouts, Disagree Over Impact
More voices from our regional web:
Eschaton: Pinch: "apparently, the Times and my local papers are going to pursue greatness by firing people."
Classical values: Fewer readers, lower circulation: The problem I have with the "Internet" theory of declining circulation is that the Daily News is Philadelphia's equivalent of a tabloid. It often features a huge front page photo of local crime or sports gossip, and cultivates the working class, man-in-the-street ethos. I don't mean to generalize or put down the Daily News, but I'd think that (especially in the 90s, when such knowledge was more elite than it is now) Philadelphia's digitally savvy crowd would have been more likely readers of the Inquirer than the Daily News, which would tend to cause more of a concomitant circulation hemorrhage in the former than in the latter. What gives?
shallow center: Inky, DN to Trim Newsroom Staffs; Lousier Journalism to Follow: ...In the long term, though, the move will only hasten the downfall...And the hell of it, of course, is that pound for pound, newspapers are the most informative, reliable, balanced, interesting, and professionally produced sources of news that exist. That market forces and demographics are stripping them, slowly but inevitably, of their influence and their effectiveness, is sad. And it will hurt the city and the region, and, ultimately, the country (the New York Times Co. also announced staff cuts yesterday), as our most vigilant civic watchdogs are rendered toothless because their margins aren't wide enough. Neither TV nor the 'Net stands ready to take their place.
Dan Rubin himself, at Blinq, in "Newspaper Days" summarizes the blogosphere's reaction.
Meanwhile, the list of networks making money from blogging continues to grow...
Lets get more independent voices here. How do you feel about all this?
WB-17 layoffs
Apparently WB-17 is part of the Tribune company and they will be firing all of their full-time staff which is about 30 people. NBC-10/WCAU will take over their newscasts in December.