Jeff Jarvis gives newspapers the harsh speech they need to hear

Jay Rosen posted a link on Twitter today to a great post by Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine. In “The Speech the NNA Should Hear,” Jarvis holds nothing back as he delivers his fictional speech to the Newspaper Association of America. His basic message to newspaper heads: “You blew it.” Jarvis chides newspaper executives for failing to take any substantial actions to adapt to the changing media world.  He also strongly suggests that newspapers stop complaining and actually thank aggregators, bloggers and Facebook–as without them, newspapers would lose half of their traffic.  So much of what Jarvis says rings true, it’s scary.

Here are some of the highlights:

On most of your sites, only 20 percent of the audience in a day ever sees your homepage and its careful packaging; 4 of 5 readers instead come in through search and links. In the link economy – instead of the outmoded content economy in which you operate – Google and aggregators and bloggers are bringing value to you; they should be charging you for the value they bring. You should rise up today and give Mr. Schmidt a big thank you for not charging you. But you won’t, because you’ve refused to understand this new business reality.

The financial crisis only accelerated your fall. It didn’t cause the fall, it accelerated it. So now, for many of you, there isn’t time. It’s simply too late. The best thing some of you can do is get out of the way and make room for the next generation of net natives who understand this new economy and society and care about news and will reinvent it, building what comes after you from the ground up. There’s huge opportunity there, for them.

Social Power: Crucial Concept

Mindy McAdams posted a link to an interesting article: Newspapers Not Harnessing Readers’ Social Power. The article is based on a survey conducted by Gartner Inc.

“In the face of declining circulations, falling offline and online revenue, and competition from digital sources, newspapers have not taken adequate steps to integrate social media tools into their content management “ecosystem,” the report said, adding that the most important task for newspapers now is to prioritize the integration of social media into a current or future content management system.”

Could social media tools help save newspapers? I’d say it’s worth a shot.

Bottom line: readers and consumers are no longer satisfied with simply taking in a story. They’re craving more.

5 Ways Newspapers can Avoid Extinction

A Mashable article by Woody Lewis, “Newspapers: 5 Ways to Avoid Extinction,” provides some interesting and helpful advice for newspapers desperately attempting to save themselves.  And Lewis has some really strong ideas.  One piece of advice he gives that I find particularly interesting is his suggestion that newspapers may want to seek out strong technology partners at universities, where students are being trained to use the web.  

His five gems of advice are:

• Embrace chaos

Chaos can be traumatic for the unimaginative, but abandoning the center of gravity can be a lifesaver. Believing in the sanctity of newspapers will not improve their chances. Random events, driven by technology and social use patterns, will shape the future.

• Devise a new strategy that emphasizes alliances and collaboration

Whether the affiliate organization is for-profit or non-profit, when a newspaper reaches out to another entity, it practices a corporate form of social media.

“I will survive, I will survive!”

Mindy McAdams posted a link to an interesting story – “10 Newspapers That Will Survive The Apocalypse.” The story, by Nicholas Carlson, claims that an anonymous investor is interested in pumping some of his money into the news business – and this guy says he’s uncovered the formula for saving newspapers.

This anonymous individual said something pretty interesting about online newspapers…

“What does our source think of newspapers on the Web? Not much. He says local papers should have a Web site run by two people that links to international and national news and keeps all local content behind a pay wall or off the Internet entirely.”

So, he’s all about control, which we already know doesn’t work.

Anyway, some of the newspapers he believes are “worth acquiring” are… The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Roanoke Times, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, The Palm Beach Post, The EW Scripps’ Texas Papers and the Orlando Sentinel.

… Where’s the Tennessean?

Why the death of newspapers can be a positive development

In the TechNewsWorld article “Why It’s OK for Newspapers to Die,” author Sonia Arrison gives her take on why the likely inevitably of most newspapers dying off isn’t necessarily a tragedy.  In fact, Arrison argues that the transition from newspapers to online content is a form of “creative destruction” that will ultimately improve the richness and depth of news content.

Resource limitations make it difficult for a single newspaper in Los Angeles or New York to cover every relevant story of local interest. When the Web takes over, however, there can be multiple blogs and companies competing to provide coverage, and the information becomes much broader and richer.  This transition from a top-down method of news reporting to a more distributed system won’t be easy at first — and, like the horse-and-buggy drivers of 100 years ago, many old-school journalists will find themselves looking for a new job.  Yet this change, a clear form of creative destruction, will create a more responsive and richer world of media with more stories and more ways of organizing and validating those stories than ever before.

“Why Newsprint Is Dead”

Sylvia Paull posted some interesting thoughts in her blog about why newspapers are dying.  She titled the post “Why Newsprint Is Dead” and says that “news” in newspapers is really just HISTORY or commentary.

“Telegrams and telephones started the death watch on newsprint. Then radio, television, and the Internet. It’s been a long time dying.”

Finding Creative Ways to Get Audience to Pay for Content

From print to online, how will newspapers get consumers to pay for content?

Freelance journalist Cathy Young chimes in on the conversation about how to keep newspapers alive even when they move online.

…There is no good reason that online content should be free, other than “people are used to it.” Is it impossible to persuade people to pay for something they are used to getting for free? Not at all. Online music downloads are a good example; so is television. While TV had been free since its inception, large numbers of people proved willing to pay for cable and digital television.

Newspapers and newsmagazines have tried to use the subscription method, as well as the pay-as-you-want system made popular by iTunes where a reader might pay a couple cents for a story. These have not worked.

New York Post Drops Legendary Gossip Columnist

Associated Press file photo: Liz Smith

NEW YORK – The New York Post is dropping Liz Smith’s column this week to save money, leaving the legendary gossip columnist without a newspaper home in the city for the first time in 33 years. “I’m very sorry that that has come to an end, and that I wasn’t valuable enough for them to keep me on,” the 86-year-old Smith said Tuesday.

According to an Associated Press article, the Post simply couldn’t keep paying the “Dame of Dish”  $125,000 per year for her column. One would assume a column that has been a regular in the Murdoch-owned newspaper since 1991 would draw a consistent audience.

Perhaps the demographic has changed too much for that. Now with gossip media outlets like TMZ and Perez Hilton, who are not only free, but also provide videos and photographs and interactive media to include and engage their audience– people seem more likely to leave  legends like Smith (whose content is made up solely of text), and go to a more interactive environment.

iTunes model for news won’t work

Mindy McAdams twittered this article by Lauren Rich Fine earlier today. Fine reports that because news is ever changing and is relevant for only a short amount of time, making consumers pay for it won’t work. However, she suggests that newspapers return to their watchdog roots “necessary to preserve a democracy,” writing local and investigative pieces and providing complements to those stories online.

• Do you think these steps will be enough to save newspapers?
• Do print newspapers even serve a purpose anymore?