Industry veteran Bill Wyman summarizes the challenges of the newspapers in five easy pieces. His two-part essay on Splice Today (one here and two here) distill the business woes as so:

1. Consumers don't pay for news and never have.
2. Newspapers are the product of monopoly thinking.
3. Timidity of newspapers won't work on the Web.
4. Staffs and managers deserve blame.
5. Newspaper Web sites suck.

If that sounds simplistic, it's because it's a very precise version of his extensive argument. He provides perspective at length.
 


Comments

Allan
08/14/2009 14:33

I've waded through most of this. Mostly what he is pointing out is bad management. Newspapers aren't suffering because readers are abandoning them. They're suffering from a loss of community voice. They have lost their unique position in providing their home community a voice and an opportunity to talk to itself.

So many dailies are now run from centralized offices by people who fly in for a meeting and leave. They don't know the community or the people or their issues. They focus on national issues, ignoring the fact that television is the leader in that coverage.

Newspapers are suffering because they aren't run by people who understand the quirks of the industry. This isn't like making corn flakes. They're suffering because they have become generic. The most local content in many papers now are the ads.

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