Print is Destroying Old Journalism

[David]

Last week I ended up talking to a couple of old friends who happen to be/or used to be in the newspaper business. One is a photog the other a former business and hard news reporter. Both are in love with journalism and both are in love with printed newspapers.

I spent some time talking about the ideas we kick around here, and encouraging them to join up. But they didn't seem all that interested. And I think I know why.

These are smart guys. Award winning journalists. But they just couldn't wrap their head around the death of the newspaper as anything but the death of journalism itself.

And this is where it occurred to me--newspaper are going to die off, at least the large city dailies. It turns out, printing paper and driving it around town is just too expensive a way to distribute the news.

Faced with this reality, newspaper management has flailed around trying to squeeze their journalistic model into the Web. But it doesn't work. And talking to my friends made it clear why:

Old journalism is based on the physical constraints of the means of production. Sorry J School folks, but there is nothing sacred about the inverted pyramid, the 15" news hole or the copy deadline. There's not a clear rationale for the art of fitting headlines or blow-out photo packages. Online, we have hyperlinks, RSS and side-by-side text presentation, we have scrolling pages and as much news space as we need. We have databases and cool photo searching and viewing software. In a nutshell, we have all kinds of tools that define new journalism (ahem, I mean the modern journalist).

Let me give an example. In old journalism, the photographer shows up at a news event, fires off a bunch of frames then goes back to the paper. First she dumps her images, does an initial edit and gives a bunch of stuff to a photo editor. The photo editor pares down the pile into a couple of the best images and sends them to the news desk. During some news meeting, a section editor will pick his favorite and it runs. The rest go into the archive.

What's funny about this process, if you've ever shot news photos, is that if you give an editor too many pictures, they will complain!

But think about it. Online, that process is kind of weird. How about this: Photog shoots news, edits out the crap, posts the rest. Online editor picks the one or two best, and features them. The community of readers provide captions, IDs and commentary on the rest. The news flows. The news is an activity, rather than a product.

To me, this is the heart of the matter. News is moving off the printed page but we still think of journalism as the torturous process of reporting and writing news for the printing paper, with all the physical, material and temporal constrains that come along.

What is sad is the those constraints have been canonized as JOURNALISM. Journalists just have trouble thinking of what they do as anything other than getting stuff to press.

My photog friend even admitted as much. He picked up a paper and started waving it around and said, basically, "It's gonna be hard to give this up as the showcase for what I do."

[Andrew]

I agree journalism needs to change, but I for one hope they don't get rid of the printed page. I like the experience. I like walking out to the driveway to get my newspaper every morning and sitting down at the kitchen table with my Chai tea. Sure, I could go the Web the night before and read the same stories a few hours earlier, but that would deprive me of this experience. I get most of my news from the Web, but just once/day I like to unplug and the printed newspaper helps me do that. Besides, what else are people going to read when they are taking a crap? (Note: I'm under 40 in case you were going to accuse me of being old)

[David]

I don't think you are old. Just old fashioned!

Look, I have a pal that makes these really ornate, handmade books. Beautiful stuff. He only make about a 200 of any edition, maybe 500. They are made the old way and show it.

But, honestly, if that was the only way books were printed and bound, we'd all own approximately 2 books, one would be the Bible and I dread the thought of what the other would be.

So, newspapers have to go. Maybe there will be an Olde Timey Newspaper service. A kid will ride up on a bike every morning and toss your paper on the lawn. It will be run by the Walt Disney Company.

OK, maybe that's a little harsh. But I was standing in Starbucks today looking at the New York Times and marveling at how thin it was. Really, the Times will probably survive in print, but only the Sunday Times. That makes sense--a once a week artifact meant to be read with coffee. The rest of the time, news will flow through the internets.

Or, that's how this old guy sees it!

-- David

[Brad King]

The one point we stuck to a Technology Review during the overhaul was this:

The website was an up-to-the-second news site that would deploy whatever technology we needed to get our news out to as many people as possible

The magazine was a premium product meant to be enjoyed at a slower pace, with longer articles, experimental writing and storytelling that covered topics we didn't cover online.

Sometimes there was a cross-over, but most issues there was no connection between the Web and the magazine because we viewed them as different.

Did that make any difference? I have no idea. Our magazine subscriptions went up (we promoted the subscriptions online even though all the content was free) and our website quadrupled in size.

BUT I fully expect the magazine to be almost completely digital in 5-8 years. Now that the Kindle is out, I'd expect a series of hardware devices in the next 12-18 months where the market starts to break.

When that happens, I'll make anyone here a bet. Those people waving papers telling you how hard it will be to give up print will do so without so much as a fight because: 1) as David says, they will have a bigger and better showcase and 2) they will see that they are stiil getting paid for what they do.

I've been writing online since 2000 and I've made more money doing that than I ever would have writing in print.

[Andrew]

Just to continue this discussion thread: A recent study by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants finds cause for optimism for the print newspaper industry. The study foresees the future growth of print media, but urges imminent action in order to ensure its survival.

More here: http://tinyurl.com/5djph9

[Elizabeth Naramore]

I don't know if the newspaper itself will die, or if it will turn into magazines (as Brad alluded to)... but I think there is something to be said for the hard copy of things. Case in point is the CD. Digital music hasn't completely eradicated the printing of CD's because people still do like to buy them and have ownership of them to carry off and do what they will with them. You buy a CD and you can burn it to wherever you want. You buy a newspaper and you can carry it off into the little boy's room :) or the beach or the subway or wherever you want. I think it will be a long time before kindle completely wipes that notion away, just as the iPod hasn't completely wiped away the concept of a CD.

[Brad King]

I don't disagree -- and I don't believe that the paper will every really go away, in some form.

As for the CD, let me share an anecdote. When I worked at Wired, I got to be good friends with people who ran the labels and ran the RIAA, their trade organization.

I was having dinner in Austin with the head of one of these organizations -- just the two of us -- and I asked: you're all smart folks, so why is there all the antagonism and lawsuits with technology. Why don't you just go digital.

The answer: they were going to try to move into distribution of digital music -- and the union (which had ties to New York and New Jersey) said if they did that, and substantially cut into their business -- no records of any kind would make it record stores.

Huh.

So did digital not come around earlier because of this? No. But it was the first time someone intimated a reason why businesses were loathe to make the change -- one of what I assumed was 1,000 reasons -- in their business model.

[Elizabeth Naramore]

Something else I meant to add to my previous post is that for what it's worth, I don't think it's only journalists that equate hard copy tangible output with accomplishment... I am the managing editor for a line of tech books and when we toyed with the notion of making some of the books "e-book only" because of printing costs, the authors were visibly upset. E-books aren't seen as "real" in the eyes of many, and they balked at seeing their prestigious "author" title be stripped away from them by merely offering an e-book instead of something they could hold in their hand, see on their shelf, and impress the ladies with. Not sure what that says about the human psyche...

[Brad King]

That we're trained like dogs to fetch -- and we get back when we can't. The authors would be THRILLED with an e-book if everyone had an e-reader.

I don't have a copy of my book at my house, but I have a big ass poster that I framed and hung on my wall. I don't need the damn book in paperback (in fact, the second edition of our game book will either be on demand and e-book -- or published by another company with those stipulations).

Eventually, we'll get there as soon as authors realize how cool it can be.

[Elizabeth Naramore]

I'm wondering if the lower barrier to entry is also part of the culprit of this perception... *anyone* can write up a piece of shit, post it on the web as an e-book, and suddenly they're an "author." Similarly, *anyone* can write about what's going on in their communities, post it on the web, and they're a "journalist." Maybe this is what some are afraid of; that the openness of social media will water-down what is a prestigious profession that takes a long time to master.

[Brad King]

Maybe. I know I just graded a bunch of work that left me nonplussed in terms of writing.

Being a writer, it's hard for me to know because I dislike everything -- and yet believe in the democratization of it all.

Possibly that is why I am disagreeable.