Change must come

America is experiencing merciless deaths of its age old newspapers. Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News closed just a few days before its 150th anniversary. Seattle Post Intelligencer stopped its print publication on Feb. 16 and continues its presence on the Web. While these two major newspapers could not withstand the dwindling readership and sour economy, the country’s newspaper industry has been in a bad shape since quite a few years. At least 120 newspapers have shut down since January 2009 and a few have even filed for bankruptcy, Tribune Company being one of them. Though layoffs and salary cuts are not restricted to the news industry alone, 21000 journalist’s jobs have vaporized in this time span.

But for how long will salary cuts and layoffs keep newspapers on life support? For big media companies like Times co. which announced temporary salary cuts and Washington Post co. which offered voluntary buyouts to its employees, the effects will be less as they have a strong advertising clientele, better readership and prominence.

The fault lies in the basic business model of a newspaper. But are the newspapers to be blamed? The inception of news business was less of a money making business and more of a passion for strength of writing, hence their business models have always been weak. Hence, with the shaky economy they now find themselves in a lurch and have to resurrect the companies in order to survive, which is certainly difficult. But different strategies are being tried and tested.

Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have reduced their home delivery to three times a week and the other four days copies will be available on racks and convenience stores. This strategy is questionable. Firstly, it breaks the reader’s habit of consuming news. What is the guarantee that a reader will shift its medium for news two times a week? This risky change was taken in order to maintain the vibrant newsroom.

The biggest blow to the news business is the major drop in advertising, which pulls in 70 to 80 percent of a newspaper’s revenue, dropped 23 percent in 2008 to $38 billion in 2008 from $49.5 billion the year before. The government has offered some respite to the news organizations. A bill has been proposed by Sen. Benjamin Cardin to allow willing newspapers to run as nonprofit organizations, by exempting taxes. This is under scrutiny by critics, as they fear government interference.

Newspapers which wish to survive will have to create a practical business model. The resources will have to be used carefully. New revenue streams have to open up apart from advertising. Newspapers today can no longer afford to be run traditionally, they ought to accept the change. The readership patterns have to change. For instance, Washington Post’s investigative projects team uploads news feeds on social networking Web sites like Twitter and Facebook which grab the visitor’s attention.

The most viable change for newspapers is turning to Web, but again, with a stronger revenue model. It will be a slow but much needed transition.