Our Perspectives
The incredible shrinking newspaper
13 July 2009
Megan Stack
At five foot three, I have never in my life felt tall. But here I was, back in my parent’s dining room in Chicago, marvelling at my massive hands and increased wingspan. Could it be? Was I, at 30, finally experiencing the growth spurt that all of my friends had 16 years ago? Rubbing the jet lag from my eyes, I discovered, sadly, that it wasn’t me that had grown - it was the newspaper in my hands that had shrivelled. As I turned the pint-sized pages I went from Bernie Madoff and Iranian elections, all the way to Dear Abby and the funnies, without my cornflakes getting soggy. Good for my tastebuds, bad for newspaper lovers across Chicago.
The future of the newspaper has long been debated, with traditionalists yearning for the Guttenberg days and young upstarts eschewing ink stains for Twitter-related eye strain. I have to admit to always being in the former camp, yet I’m now realising that this is a most romantic notion. I turn more to the internet for news than any other medium right now. And as I re-read that last sentence, the banality of it strikes me - of course I turn to the net for news. So does nearly everyone else.
Is this why the Tribune Company, the parent of the LA Times and my incredibly shrinking Chicago Tribune, has filed for Chapter 11 in the States? According to them it’s the massive debt the company had to absorb when the company went private two years ago. However the decline in advertising and its effects on the news media industry is well known. In fact, to raise cash owner Sam Zell has held a veritable car boot sale trying to offload some of the company’s other interests – including the Chicago Cubs baseball team – and there are even rumours of “For Sale” signs popping up in front of the landmark Tribune Tower.
This is not a unique problem, of course. The city’s “other” paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, has also filed for Chapter 11 due to a seriously squeezed income stream. Famously, the once-titanic Knight-Ridder gave up the ghost four years ago under pressure from investors who just weren’t seeing return for their buck. In Ireland, Dublin’s two free sheets have merged under increased pressure to increase advertising revenues; there are rumours of more Irish newspaper sections and supplements getting the axe; and there has been an alarming new trend of (to-remain-nameless) newspapers requesting display ads in exchange for editorial.
So what’s the answer? As expected there is a huge shift to focus on online offerings – blogging, tweeting, and adding enhanced web content by the bucket load – in an attempt to keep previously loyal paper readers loyal online web users. And most newspapers are strenuously re-evaluating their revenue models to compete with the web’s cheaper, more targeted, more interactive, and more instantly-gratifying offerings.
So maybe the newspaper industry hangs in the balance, maybe it will find that magic formula, making them as essential as ever. In the meantime, for the love of newsprint, grab a paper and read it from front to back – if you’re lucky, your corn flakes will be an inedible mess before you’re finished.
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