Are You Done With That Paper?

It would be difficult to pinpoint the precise moment when it dawned on me that the newspaper industry was truly in need of saving, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably right around when I received word that my column was going to be cut from a weekly to a biweekly. "This is an outrage!" I shouted at my editor, even though I got the news via email. "The American newspaper must be saved! Or, failing that, how about my column?"



Of course, I'm not alone in neglecting to see the handwriting on the wall - or, in this case, the Internet. For years, we in the newspaper industry have been lulled into a false sense of how indispensable our product is. Poring over rapidly declining circulation figures and flatlining ad sales portending our doom, we've wondered, incredulous, "What would the public do without us - without our riveting stories featuring eye-grabbing headlines like 'Budget Debate May Soon Reach Impasse,' without our instructions on whom to vote for in the upcoming special election for interim sewer commissioner, without our horoscopes advising Scorpios that they need to watch out for a mysterious 'Libra man' who'll soon be coming into their lives?"



But the sad reality is that the print newspaper, as we know it, may before long join such other obsolete vestiges of a romantic, but now distant past as the horse and buggy, ticker-tape machines, vinyl records and adult movie theaters. 



Which is not to say that I've been twiddling my thumbs while newspapers have been slowly dying. It's just that most of my suggestions to save newspapers have fallen on deaf ears, including my idea to launch a worldwide papier mache craze, my recommendation that every American adopt a pet bird, and the rumor I started that exposure to Styrofoam packing peanuts renders people sterile. The only idea that garnered any attention at all was my suggestion that newspapers could recoup a significant portion of our recent losses by laundering money for Colombian drug lords, but that "attention" came primarily in the form of a rather unpleasant visit from some humorless representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.



The crux of the problem newspapers face is that, while our product remains popular, readers are increasingly accessing their news content online (or, as we prefer to say, "stealing" it). However, online advertising revenues are significantly lower than the rates we charge for running ads in the printed version.

And while some publishers have been mulling ways to finagle readers into paying for reading news stories online, a few others have broached the possibility of an entirely new business model. 



"What if we just got rid of all the ads?" these industry executives have been heard to inquire. "If we just produced newspapers filled with our usual content, but funded entirely through subscriptions? Sure, it would cost more - a lot more, but people are always complaining about too many ads in the paper as it is, and this way they'd get only what they wanted. People might be willing to pay extra for that, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they?" Then these publishers wave goodbye to the gnomes, leprechauns, unicorns and other fantasy creatures that also reside in this imaginary world and go back to grousing under their breath about Google, Craigslist and "those %#$&% bloggers."



Admittedly, much as we in the industry like to assign blame for declining readership, there's no real use in pointing fingers. Not even if we can be reasonably sure that the responsibility lies primarily with young people who, as a generation, have abandoned the daily newspaper subscription, perhaps owing to the fact that anyone under the age of 25 seems to believe that everything from television, music and movies to cell phone service and college education should be free and that the only thing worth paying actual money for is to satisfy their bizarre predilection for finding new, highly sensitive body parts to have tattooed, pierced or both. 



And why wouldn't younger folks want to read newspapers, what with our frequent hard-hitting opinion pieces decrying the younger generation's educational shortcomings, slovenly style of dress, cavalier attitude toward drug use, risky sexual behavior, bad driving habits and overuse of the word "like?" Why, one ignorant newspaper columnist even recently accused young people of an unhealthy interest in tattoos and piercings. What young person wouldn't want to pay $100 a year to have all that delivered to their doorstep every morning?



So the question remains: can anything be done to save newspapers before they all disappear? Maybe. In fact, I read something encouraging in today's paper that gave me hope that positive change may be right around the corner. I can't reveal too much, except to say that a Gemini may be involved.