Rick Raw: Newspapers on Life Support–All Print Media Fading Fast

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

Recently, those of us who have worked for print media and newspapers all our journalist careers have felt the pain of downsizing, layoffs, cutbacks, and buyouts. I’ve worked for Entertaining U, for 24 years. Overnight, EU went virtual and monthly, reducing my job to part time employment. From various sources, I’ve heard downsizing horror stories from colleagues in other publications. Movie reviewers became expendable as newspapers cut back on staff. Longtime movie critics for Newsweek Magazine, Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour, took buyouts. More than a dozen daily newspapers, including those in Denver, Tampa, and Fort Lauderdale, and several alternative weeklies have laid-off their movie critics and other staff.

The Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has recently reported that "the newspaper industry’s decline accelerated last year, with circulation dropping 2.5 % and advertising revenue falling 7%." Of course, our wrecked economy is partially to blame, but the Internet revolution has created a seismic shift in information delivery. Now information travels in cyberspace at the speed of light, leaving the printed word on the brink of obsolescence.

Indeed, the Internet is an unstoppable runaway train, with its offshoots such as, Podcasts, iPhones, and smart cellphones with full Internet access, have taken over the dissemination of information. I predict that in the next ten years, newspapers and other print media will be almost extinct. Today, cutting down trees to make paper seems not only ecologically wasteful but as primitive as making fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Ah yes, I love the smell of newspaper ink in the morning. But I grew up getting my news the old fashioned way-- printed on paper. Today’s youth shun newspapers as a relic of the past in favor of tapping into cyberspace, wirelessly. Everyone is on the go, plugged into to iPods via those tiny headphones or Blackberries that allow them to send E-mails, text their fingers into knots, or find out if Britney Spears is wearing underwear that day. Yes, it’s a brave new world of instant communications and information overload. Please, can I just sit down and read my newspaper?

The only problem with this Internet revolution is: How do the former print media mavens make money in cyberspace. Advertising has always been the domain of print and electronic media. Print media big shots expanded their websites as the demand increased. Now, the media conglomerates should ban together and setup incentives for luring advertisers to their websites. There are plenty of examples of websites that are selling advertising. My favorite is former CNN anchor, www.DarynKagan.com She has a daily hi-res webcast with a human interest story. She has nailed national corporate video advertising for her site.

It’s just a matter of time before the former newspaper marketers figure out a foolproof formula for selling on the Internet. The trick is proving to advertisers that they are getting the exposure for which they pay. Like radio and television, a universally accepted rating system is needed that is more comprehensive than just the number of hits. Since I showcase my own webzine, www.rickatnight.com, I’m daily wrestling with new ideas to sell advertising. Since I was downsized, I desperately need the income. Journalism was my Plan B. I have no Plan C.

Unquestionably, there are a myriad of news and commentary sites on the Internet from www.huffingtonpost.com to humorist Andy Borowitz’s funny www.borowitzreport.com that are scattered around like chicken feed on the Internet. New and innovative ways of grouping sites by content are being developed. Stop the presses–stop cutting down trees–print is a dying breed.

In contrast, when I told someone I was now writing for my webzine and EU’s website, he said, "Big deal, everyone has a website." True, and everyone thinks they’re a writer. But very few of us are intelligent and experienced journalists. As in print, the cream will rise to the top, eventually. And, one day old timers like me will talk nostalgically about the good old days when newspapers were still around.