Note: I’ve had three “special intern lunches” (aka, you come, big wigs talk, everyone eats crappy/free food) this week with several editors and business people at Time Inc. – so, be warned, here come some posts about the state of big journalism (from my perspective of course).
Found this ad in my SI magazine today - it's a sign or good timing on this post.
Newspapers and journalism are not the same thing. That may seem like a “duh” statement – but it is not, people do not always separate the two.
Newspapers are dying. Newspapers can’t be saved. Newspapers won’t exist in the future. All of this may or may not be true, but one thing is for sure – the term journalism applies to a lot more than just the black and white print. People often forget this. Newspapers may be struggling, but journalism as a whole isn’t about to jump in the grave.
Here are some facts on newspaper circulation in 2009:
Overall, newspaper circulation fell 4.6 % daily and 4.8% Sunday for the six-month period ended September 30, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That was even worse than the 2.6% declines daily and 4.6% Sunday reported for the period a year earlier
An here is a fact about newspaper circulation over the last decade:
The print circulation slide from 2001 to 2008 totals roughly 13.5 % daily and 17.3% Sunday.
Advertisement sales in newspapers echo these declines as well making it all the more bleak for companies like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But let’s not forget another area of journalism, another area of print journalism even; magazines.
Not every magazine in the industry is prospering – it’s true. But some magazines have something working for them that newspapers do not; they are valued brands. When a household in the Midwest starts to cut back on finances, what are the first things to go. The subscription to The New York Times? Yes. The subscription to Time Magazine? Maybe. The subscription to People? NEVER!
The CEO of Time Inc., Ann Moore, tells a story to explain why this is the case:
When financial times get tight, the men’s underwear market always takes a hit. The women’s never sees the change. This is because women deal with the money in the home. Today a majority of household finances are entirely run by women. Of course she will sacrifice her husbands cleanliness before her own, after-all she is the one buying his underwear for him anyway.
The same is true 0f the decision making process a woman makes for the “journalism” she is willing to sacrifice. Online and television journalism is safe – it’s (mostly) free, and there’s no way the kids will tolerate the exile of the television. The newspaper can go and a news magazine might even be fat to cut. But People is a womans way to escape. Only the most drastic times will make her stop paying for her bible of the ‘hottest bachelors of the summer’ or ‘weight loss secrets.’ As Ann Moore said, ‘target the women, that market won’t leave.’ Reasons like this are why magazine journalism can hang on even when newspapers are fading into a history lesson.
And what about digital news, online publications, and mobile applications? Are these not journalism? Are these not providing breaking news and groundbreaking multimedia journalistic content? I’m pretty sure they are… and I’m pretty sure we are only just seeing the ways things like the tablet and html5 can expand the capabilities of journalists.
So when you hear the newspaper is dying – don’t shed a tear for journalism. Journalism is going to be just fine.
