OTC: Yo, Obama, Bail Out Papers

27 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  misc on May 06 at 11:15 a.m.

  No. Print journalism needs to find another revenue model.

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  JamesBond on May 06 at 12:15 p.m.

  I seriously cannot believe a “journalist” would actually have this opinion, yet at the same time, it pretty much embodies a lot of what went wrong with newspapers.

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  LukeB on May 06 at 12:17 p.m.

  Of course it’s not a conflict of interest, as the media has been kowtowing to those in government and business for the past, oh I don’t know, 50 years?

  The media, including newspapers, are no longer the watchdog they once were. Let them go under, since that’s what the ignorant public wants.

  As for the automakers, they should have been left to fail as well.

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  toadman on May 06 at 12:26 p.m.

  Bail out newspapers by giving everyone in the US a Kindle and a free subscription to the newspaper of their choice…provided that newspaper has a Kindle version…which they should…if they want to survive the new paradigm, that is…

  ;-)

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  Sisyphus on May 06 at 12:31 p.m.

  Well no the medium shouldn’t be bailed out. That’s not the problem. Many people acknowledge the public purpose in having a full time government watchdog. If all the journalists that formally worked for newsprint are out of work who will fulfill this obligation? And as Luke alludes, the conflict of interest is already rampant but with special interests controlling the message, not the government. That really became a problem starting in the seventies. Its difficult to say whether I’d trust a news source with a code of ethics dependent on public funds than what we got now.

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  Kibby on May 06 at 12:36 p.m.

  While circulation does bring in revenue, it’s advertising that pays the salaries of the vast majority of the newsapapers staff.
  The difficulty that we face has much to do with a sharp downturn in revenue from 3 key sectors; auto, employment, and real estate.

  It is alarming to think that journalists could become a thing of the past since we’ve relied on them for so long to ferret out injustices locally and around the world. Yet without advertising revenue, newspapers can not survive. It is indeed a dilema.

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  Charlie on May 06 at 12:37 p.m.

  No! Newspapers have caused their own demise.

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  Escapee on May 06 at 1:33 p.m.

  Just like Automakers have created their own demise.

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  Kibby on May 06 at 1:45 p.m.

  There’s much that the newspaper industry can & is trying to do to improve it’s situation, but “we” are not to blame for our own demise. After all, “we” did not create the internet, nor do “we” have anything to do with the collapse of the housing market, auto industries woes, or the current unemployment crisis. Circulation fees do not support the newspaper, advertising revenue does.

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  keithincda on May 06 at 1:50 p.m.

  as to the question, they shouldn’t be bailing out anyone….

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  jreighley on May 06 at 2:01 p.m.

  Nope. Newspapers are obsolete… Sorry guys… It just takes too long to print.

  I can list stuff on craigslist for free and it is often gone within an hour. Why would I buy classified advertising, which isn’t instantly searchable, and takes days?

  There is still a market for journalism.. You just gotta be a lot faster than the presses.

  Governments can prop up a museum industry, but there is a good chance they will corrupt what is good about it in the process. (Impartial journalism)

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  Nick_Adams on May 06 at 9:05 p.m.

  What are these “newspapers” of which you speak?

  All kidding aside, I love newspapers. But, as many have pointed out here, their delivery model is outdated. I read the Spokesman online everyday, as well as most other regional papers. I buy my local paper only on Sundays (the Sunday version is almost worthless these days, but old habits die hard) or if there isn’t a free one laying around the local coffee shop.

  Once apon a time, newspapers made sense for advertisers. Not so much anymore. As circulation/readership drops, it gets harder to make a strong case for advertising. Also, other media is dirt cheap right now.

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  JamesBond on May 06 at 9:12 p.m.

  We need to go back to the Steam Engine. Also, what happened to stone tablets?

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  idawa on May 06 at 9:18 p.m.

  if it make ink stained wretches feel any better, new media isn’t all that is cracked up to be either. Take recent internet darlings like U-Tube and Facebook. Sure, they made their founders rich, but as ongoing business ventures they are not doing so hot according to the various sources. Take for instance You-Tube who operating expenses are gi-normous - the amount of storage they need to be our collective video depository creates a huge bill that grows exponentially along with the popularity of the site. And yet, the advertising streams just aren’t there - some report speculate that Google is loosing 1.65 million per day, yes, per day on the site. Same with Facebook, they have become a storage bank for photos, quips, etc… but the ads seldom get click thrus and the model does not seem to be sustainable. It seems, in this day and age, it is a pay for what you use model like iTunes that is the ticket. Perhaps paper need to shore up their copyright and get out of the tired old new wire models and start charging directly for what they produce - right now aggregators aren’t paying sufficiently for what they use.

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