How the Obama administration can save newspapers (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Los Angeles Times ^ | May 30, 2009 | Tim Rutten

[abb]

Executives from many of America's leading newspaper companies and the head of the Associated Press met quietly in Chicago on Thursday to discuss ways to increase revenues from their online operations -- presumably by charging visitors to their websites -- as well as how to recapture some share of their catastrophically declining classified ad business.

The meeting, whose participants included an antitrust lawyer to make sure the conversation didn't stray into impermissible collusion or price-fixing, was conducted under the auspices of the Newspaper Assn. of America, and its agenda was titled "Models to Lawfully Monetize Content." These guys may be slow on the uptake, but their legal departments have schooled them well in risk management.

Simply put, the reason industry leaders -- a fractious, hidebound and habitually timid group even in the best of times -- finally were willing to come together and discuss the crisis is this: Unless the English-speaking world's newspapers find a way to charge for the content they currently give away free on their websites and allow to be aggregated and sold to advertisers by Internet search-engine companies that pay no fees for the privilege, most papers won't survive very far into the next decade.

The facts are stark: Over the last three years, American newspapers alone have lost 40% of their classified advertising -- $7 billion worth -- to free Internet sites such as Craigslist. Over that same period, display advertising sales have dropped by a quarter, which amounts to an additional $12 billion each year.

Although it's true that newspapers' own online advertising has grown significantly in percentage terms over those 36 months, the annual increase actually amounts to just $445 million, according to the Associated Press.

Snip

[abb]

"Well, when the president the newspaper industry does it that means that it is not illegal."

[abb]

ping

[Darkwolf377]

I love how these newspaper folks, who always have been and always should be against any kind of connection to the government, are suddenly all for the government stepping in and helping out now that they can’t survive in a competitive market. It never occurs to them that maybe the reason they are bleeding readership is because they’re doing something wrong.

[Always Right]

Newspapers kills trees. Tress absorb CO2. This makes newspapers a serous threat to life on the planet. Why should we save something we know for a fact from reading them causes the greatest threat to our existence.

[abb]

http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/nonprofitmedia/
Duke Nonprofit Media Conference
(links at this page)

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=164375
If I’d Been at that Hush-Hush Newspaper Meeting...

[ComputerGuy]

...and democracy itself, which depends on a vigorously free and independent press -- will be the ultimate losers...

As if we can't survive without a bunch of self-important blowhards telling us what's 'going on'.

[abb]

"If the president the newspaper cartel, for example, approves something because of the national security they're so "important to the functioning of a vital democracy", or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude they're losing money hand over fist, then the president's the newspaper cartel's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law."

Nixon/Frost interview, May 19, 1977

[Steve Van Doorn]

because the message is more important.
Remember it is a religion.

[abb]

Substitute “the oil industry” for “newspapers” in that article and tell me what the lead story would be on the evening news broadcasts.

[ComputerGuy]

Great point !

[Bon mots]

The entire US Newspaper industry is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Socialist/Obamunist Party.

Obama will bail them out. He needs them.

[Bon mots]

No good Socialist can do without his propaganda department. The MSM did a wonderful job for Obama. He cannot let them down.

[Darkwolf377]

The newspaper industry is going to learn a very hard lesson: When you build someone up to the level of savior, he will be the first to believe it himself, and will thus think he doesn’t need you anymore.

[EasySt]

If the drive by media was half as smart as they think they are, they would have been the creators of web based services like craig’s list, ebay, etc.

But that would have gone against their “progressive” agenda.

[abb]

The entire US Newspaper industry is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Socialist/Obamunist Party.

I submit it's the other way around. The Democrat/Socialist/Obamunist party is the political arm of the newspaper industry.

[Mark was here]

Pre-internet, what was the actual cost for a typical want ad, and how much was it marked up?

[iopscusa]

Thanks ABB for keepin’ tabs on our very own Pravda...interesting thought that the ‘Democrat/Socialist/Obamunist party is the political arm of the newspaper industry’.

[FatherofFive]

Obama will bail them out. He needs them.

Here's the plan - The newspapers will start printing two "ObamaBucks" in every copy. These will be legal currency. So you pay $1 for a newspaper, and get $2 in Obamabucks, redeemable everywhere. Newspapers fly off the stands.

[raybbr]

Newspapers kills trees. Tress absorb CO2. This makes newspapers a serous threat to life on the planet. Why should we save something we know for a fact from reading them causes the greatest threat to our existence.

I know you are being sarcastic but the whole article was about on-line newspapers...

[Landru]

"I submit it's the other way around. The Democrat/Socialist/Obamunist party is the political arm of the newspaper industry."

Probably so.
But they're going to have to force people to buy the crap.
There's a huge majority of Americans who don't read as it is, the typical zerO supporter for example?
They ain't gonna like it.

Then we'll all hear they got rights! ;^)