By Barry Schaeffer
(reprinted from the January 2000 edition of Newspapers and Technology)
copyright, 2000 by Barry Schaeffer. All rights reserved.
These days, with the world changing at breakneck speed, running any kind of business has almost become an exercise in clairvoyance.
Newspapers, more than many endeavors, are attempting to deal with fundamental shifts in how people live, buy and generally become aware of and interact with what is going on around them. The primary culprit, it often seems, is the Internet -- that devious electronic genie luring the masses to every dot.com on the block, away from stores, travel agents Ö and many of the services traditionally provided by newspapers. If, as is apparent, the Internet is a juggernaut that won't stop any time soon, then doesn't it stand to reason that these changes will continue, only increasing pressure on already strained businesses, newspapers included?
Perhaps, but that may not be quite the entire answer. Indeed, many of the trends that seem to be growing from the advent of the Internet have actually been with us for some time and, accordingly, may not be tied to the continued development of the Net itself. If true, that could portend a considerably brighter future than the Internet-centric view.
At this change of the millennium, it seemed appropriate to look at a couple of the more troublesome trends and try to understand why they may not be as irreversible as they sometimes seem. The value in such an effort is obvious -- if changes that have eroded newspapers' franchise and market position aren't a product of the Internet, but are merely coincidental with it, then they may be transient or even reversible.
First, newspapers are at their most powerful when you sit down and read all or a major part of them. These days, people seem increasingly unwilling to spend the time reading the type of in-depth coverage a newspaper can deliver, opting instead for the capsules often found on the Web.
It seems that the rise of the Internet has created a generation of readers with very short attention spans and no patience for content they can't get in 20 words or less.
How can newspapers compete with an electronic medium whose major characteristics are that it is both virtually instant and organized for drastic abbreviation? The temptation has been to say that they can't and had better become more like their electronic competitors.
There are two things about this trend that may hold promise for newspapers.
In fact, the shortening attention span of the average reader appeared long before the Internet, actually dating back to the rise of television in the 1950s, and accelerating in the 60s with color and slicker presentation. While the Internet has profited from the trend, it isn't driving it, so we need not assume that the trend is neither in its early stages, nor that it will continue as the Internet grows.
In fact, there are some pronounced countertrends that suggest such a move in the opposite direction. Consider the wildly successful acceptance of the Harry Potter children's novels. Just when we might be tempted to fear that young people's attention span is in danger of disappearing altogether, millions of them are devouring these books and moving on to others in a solid reappearance of the willingness to commit large blocks of time to --dare I say it -- reading. If well-written, interesting content can lure today's young people back to reading books, then perhaps interesting, well-written news and commentary can lead their parents back to reading newspapers. To say this is not to suggest that newspapers need not evolve with real changes in technology and reader preferences. It does hold out the promise, however, that newspapers' core product -- well-written, in-depth and rigorously verified information hasn't gone out of style.
Second, as Internet competitors moved into local markets with everything from on-line classifieds to theater listings to news stories direct from Associated Press or Reuters, it appeared that newspapers could not, or would not, compete. Early experience suggested that this was the case, as more than one newspaper and holding company tried head-to-head competition with rather dismal results. Things looked pretty bleak for a time. (This writer was, admittedly, among those less than sanguine about the situation). As people flocked to new entrants like Yahoo, Excite and eBay, it seemed as if newspapers just could not find the model to compete or, worse yet, the will to look for a solution with an open mind.
In the past couple of years, however, a growing number of newspapers have found that developing their own local site, disconnected from the core newspaper staff and structure, but linked to it through shared resources and stories, could create the kind of interest that brings subscribers back within the overall newspaper umbrella.
Once they got the subscribers to visit their local sites, some of these newspapers successfully created promotions and other links to encourage readers to return to the paper editions (or their core electronic counterparts).
The end result, happily, has been a resurgence of interest in the newspaper's offerings and a return of the brand loyalty that has traditionally insulated newspapers from all types of competitors.
Interestingly, this is the same basic strategy IBM used in developing the PC and reversing its own string of competitive failures at the hands of more nimble competitors like Apple. While the industry is far from out of the woods, these pioneering papers have at least demonstrated that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel.
If these phenomena can be taken as representative of the way the public and the newspaper industry can deal with new and fascinating technologies, we can assume that in those areas where newspapers have a unique and valuable resource to offer, they will ultimately see that resource retain the audience it needs to survive and prosper.
Life and business are like chess games, not roulette. Each move, unlike each turn of the wheel, doesn't start a new game, and winning depends on seeing where the play will be four or five moves down the line. Survival depends on looking ahead and moving to be in the right place as play unfolds.
Happily, at least in some areas, both society and newspapers seem to be getting the message.