US: the future of the newspaper according to the Newspaper Association of America

Posted by John Burke on July 26, 2005 at 1:13 PM

We've talked a bit about the bottom line in a couple of recent postings (here and here) and how it's being affected by new technologies and changing reader habits. In June, top newspaper executives at the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) Future of the Newspaper conference acknowledged the transforming media landscape, heralding the necessity for investment in technology, giving more power to the consumer and innovation in general. But when reading through an account of the meeting in the NAA's magazine Presstime, it doesn't seem like they're sure what to do about it.

VP of new media at The Sacramento Bee, Edward Canale, said "I don't know that the people who have gotten us to this point are going to lead us out of it." Some of those quoted flirted around the vicious circle of 'quality content,' the 'engaged reader' and the advertiser who craves 'result-based pricing.' But there is only one concrete suggestion in the article which seemed to be the major concern of each conference attendee; that of transparent rate cards for advertisers. Fair enough. The article cites Google as being the innovator and seeing as the search engine giant survives, quite successfully, on advertising of this nature, it's not a bad model to follow.

But is this it? Is this all these newspaper executives came up with besides of bunch of empty "We must do" phrases?

- What about classifieds? Have they given in already to Craigslist, which has 50,000 new ads daily in New York alone (see article)?

- Multimedia convergence? Some papers around the US have been successful joining up with TV stations, which are also losing viewers (see article).

- Different subscription methods? Free papers seem to be doing just fine as well as free Internet content. Are more publishers going to start playing with various semi-tailored subscription methods to attract a wide range of readers like the New York Times is doing?

- Involving the citizen in the news process? Apart from giving the reader what they want, will more papers be fight through their famed arrogance and integrate reader content such as photos, video and quick commentary on breaking events?

- Mobile devices? The Internet is not necessarily the final frontier. What will papers do to get to their reader anytime, anywhere?

And of course, these are just a few obstacles that newspaper companies will have to overcome in the near future if they want to remain relevant.

The NAA article begins with a quick summary of the digital revolution which has played a huge factor in current newspaper problems. But it then ignores the whole subject, maybe because it was never mentioned at the conference apart from its introductory speaker. The struggle to adapt to the Internet is just the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road, and the executives started skipping down the path with their suggestions for advertising seeing as the Internet boasts a growing capacity for the targeted advertising they praised. But it's a long way to Oz, and there are many lions, tigers and bears.

Sources: Presstime, NewYorkMetro.com (Craigslist), Broadcasting and Cable (newspaper/TV convergence)