Newspapers Rendered

Those of us who love newspapers have not only read the bad news, we’re living it. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post (any of them, all of them, as Sarah Palin says) have reduced the physical size of their papers as well as the length of the articles. Investigative journalism has taken a fall, made up in part by energetic bloggers and independent web-only citizen-journalists. So,  I am not denying the value of the (as Bush says) internets.

Every quarter paid newspaper circulation declines, and with it, advertising revenue. Reporters and editors have been fired or encouraged to retire as the once full-throated hawkers of news have become mute vendors of websites, working their way towards the utopia of publishing without the messy labor and material costs of print production.

I must at this point digress to refute the notion, most recently advanced by a man named Jonathan M. Lloyd in his letter to the NYT (12.4.08), that reading on a screen saves trees, the implication being that those who read newspapers and books are deforesting the world while screen watchers are green (perhaps the way nuclear power is green?).

And what happens to that biodegradable notebook computer or Bezos Kindle or Sony Reader when they are discarded? These flowers issue nectar of toxic chemicals that will leave an imprint on the soil and drinking water long after the self-satisfied consumer who bought them has been interred. Let’s not forget that trees, properly harvested, are a renewable resource.
A letter by Peter C. Herman also appeared in the Times on 12/04:

“Unlike computers, books require no energy at all. One does not need to plug in the original edition of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” (1667) or Thomas More’s “Utopia” (1516) to read them. The book is not only efficient, but the ultimate in green technology as well. It is even biodegradable. Second, the technology required to retrieve the data stored in books (that is, our brains and reading) does not change, whereas one must constantly update digital storage devices. For example, data stored on zip drives or data stored using a defunct program can be accessed with great difficulty, if at all…”

The same might be said of newspapers. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no Luddite, but at this very moment faces in the news peer at me from my coffee and dining room tables and other spaces. I get the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times every day. The articles invite me to read them at my leisure and without the noxious brightness of the screen I stare at as I write.

Herman, by the way, has hit on one of the great taboos of our time: the outsized energy consumption that our wired world requires. This was an issue discussed in the 1970’s, but it has all but disappeared in the world-wide rush to embrace computers and everything they represent.

The fate of the Tribune is a subject I could write about ad nauseam. The greedy leprechaun who “bought” the newspaper with billions of dollars in borrowed money is on his way to burying it. Maybe calling him a leprechaun is too flip: let’s describe him as the future Ozymandias of the newspaper biz.
So, isn’t it just possible that the newspaper owners/investors have it backwards? Rather than giving the online paper away for free while raising the price of the print editions, why not the other way round?

Furthermore, instead of leading readers exclusively to the web for updates and additional stories, why not offer some print exclusives along the way? The WSJ made money for years by charging for access to their website. Why not reduce the newsstand price or make it free and charge web-surfers some number of pennies per page view? Yes, yes, I know everyone has gone for miles in the other direction; the Times did away with Times Select, the New Yorker offers itself free of charge on the web.

The problem is that the more you devalue printed newspapers, the less value they have. The newspaper industry has made no attempt over the years to argue its case to the public. Book publishers have, to a limited extent, promoted reading; the film industry disseminates pro-movie propaganda whenever and however it can, but the newspapers never even tried.

I am not suggesting that we can ever return to the Old Ways. The internet is here to stay, but so is paper and ink.

When Barack Obama won the election there was a sudden market for printed papers that stunned the publishers. It’s time to build on that, just as the publishing industry ought to have built a pro-book campaign around the success of Harry Potter.

Lovers of the printed page, please, do not go gentle into that good night. There’s bounty for you.

© Bruce J. Miller and brucejmiller.wordpress.com, 2008,2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bruce J. Miller and brucejmiller.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.