The only future I can see clearly is one in which newspapers cater to their loyal core. In my future they serve up superior journalism and charge readers the full freight, no longer relying so heavily on advertisers that are deserting in droves. If people pay more, perhaps they’ll place a higher value on what’s delivered, and spend more time with it. There is a market—I hope, I pray—and I’ll bet it’s larger than just me.
Feature
08:00 AM - January 19, 2010
Time the Conquerer
Three newspapers in thirty-nine minutes. Uh, oh.
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
What to do if you find a baby bird
Expert advice
Inside Google’s secret lab
We might deplore the practice, but posting pictures of our food online is a way to bring everyone to the table
How the ‘World’s 50 Best’ list changed the way elite restaurants do business
“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
I really enjoyed this piece and I think the author is absolutely correct in her conclusion. I like the model of HBO - people pay for premium TV. They pay a lot, enough to keep quality high, and in exchange they feel like they can't miss it. I was happy to read that the Times will begin charging online readers in 2011. If publishers are afraid that charging for online content will drive readers away then they have too little faith in their quality or originality and that's a sad statement.
#1 Posted by Dan, CJR on Wed 20 Jan 2010 at 09:34 AM
If you want to know how people spent so little time with the paper, don't look at WSJ, NYT, WaPo, look at the thin daily gruel served in Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Franciso, Hartford, Philadelphia, Kansas City, New Haven, Jacksonville, Indianapolis and then on to small metro areas. It's hard to even find 39 minutes worth of material in them unless you do the crosswords and sudoku. In fact, it's quite silly to apply that time limit to someone trying to read the three densest papers.
But I really like Jill's condemnation of the overbroad nut graf and editor-driven stories. It's a shame she wised up too late.
#2 Posted by OtherDan, CJR on Wed 20 Jan 2010 at 12:08 PM
Ahh if only I had that sort of time to read that many papers. I'm a high school student in the Baltimore region and I'm absolutely enamored newspapers, for many the same reasons as the author. Since the Sun has been no good for about the past 10 years, I get the Post delivered. Unfortunately I dont get to read much of anything until after school. And then when homework and other extracurriculars are added, I sometimes find myself not finishing the paper until late at night, by the time the next day's edition is already being printed. Time is the enemy of newspapers, but even so, I think most anyone could fit at least one quality paper into their day, every day if they make a conscious effort to inform themselves.
#3 Posted by Jonathan, CJR on Wed 20 Jan 2010 at 03:10 PM
I find it useful to assess this issue in economic terms: The opportunity cost (in time) of consuming irrelevant information is rising.
That is to say, every 39 minutes I spend reading information that's lightly relevant, like the NYT's too-thin trend stories, is 39 minutes I didn't spend reading highly relevant information from a niche outlet like Blazer's Edge or CJR.
The implication: it's not that modern readers are "distracted" from what matters or that life has somehow hurried up. It's not that newspapers have gotten crappier. It's that, given the proliferation of new niche content sources, lightly relevant content newspapers' simply doesn't make a lot of sense to consume.
I also agree with Drew's conclusion: catering to core loyalists is the only way to sustainability.
More thoughts on this here:
http://www.oldforestnewtrees.com/2009/07/31/relevance-is-mandatory-so-pick-a-niche/
#4 Posted by Michael Andersen, CJR on Wed 20 Jan 2010 at 04:23 PM
Jill, great piece. came here via romenskio. One word reax: snailpapers. the future is in snailpapers. google the term. smile., term of endearment., danny, tufts 1971
#5 Posted by dan bloom, CJR on Thu 21 Jan 2010 at 03:18 AM