It is surprising
that the internet is still being blamed for killing the
daily newspaper. Newspaper readerships have been declining
for the last forty years. It is important to remember that
people have a tendency to say this about any new technology.
Those of us with a theatrical background can point out
that the world has been declaring the death of theatre
for over a century –and it has never been
as popular as it is today.
 No, the internet will not kill print media. But it will
give it a much-needed kick in the ass. Speaking at the
Newspaper Association of America’s annual conference
in Chicago this month, outgoing chairman Jay Smith put
it like this: “The world changed a lot. Newspapers
changed a little.” It is not about the delivery mechanism.
It is about the content and the audience.
Consider the history of the newspaper. For the last 350
years editors have selected the stories they feel would
have the highest potential interest among the generic readership
of his area. Once the moveable type on the presses was
locked into place there was no going back. That was the
paper you had to sell that day. So in order to make the
most money your publication had to have the broadest general
appeal. Each reader received the same edition, regardless
of their personal tastes. More than any other single factor,
the technological limitation of the printing press has
shaped what we think of as newspapers.
Writing for the Online Journalism Review, here
is what Vin Crosbie had to say: “If there has been
but one trend in media during the past 40 years, it has
been people gravitating toward whatever mix of media vehicles
best satisfies each of their own unique mixes of generic
and individual interests –mainly at the expense of
generic media vehicles like newspapers and traditional
television networks.”
Is it any wonder that the wide-appeal, low-relevance model
is losing ground against the internet –a technology specifically
designed to be specialised? Once again it is not the
delivery mechanism. I am only too happy to read content
on newsprint. It is much easier than reading it on a screen.
It is a content issue and one that is not confined to print
media. CD sales are down but iTunes is making buckets of
money. Why would I buy an album which only has three songs
I like when I can buy ten songs I do like for
the same money and make my own damned CD.Readers are no
longer technologically restricted to receiving news content
from one source; the newspaper. In fact, they have more
choices than ever before and their options are growing.
Four years ago The Media Center –A Virginia based
nonprofit think tank- coined a phrase, “We Media”,
to describe the emerging phenomenon of global access to
content from infinite sources, content that empowers participation
and civic engagement in the news and information that affect
society. According to the US State Department’s latest
eJournal on the issue more than two billion people –almost
a third of the world’s population- had a cell phone.
Nearly 800 million new ones are sold each year. By 2008
600 million people will be able to capture events with
sophisticated, web-enabled digital cameras, many as a capability
of their cell phones. These devices create a “global
content generation” that has the unprecedented power
to create, produce, share and participate in life as it
happens.
 This wave of user-generated content has been dubbed citizen
journalism. Recognise the term? Hurricane Katrina made
it globally famous. It is estimated by 2010 more than half
of all news content will be citizen journalism generated.
Many traditional journalists are dismissive of this (wouldn’t
you be?) because this new content is generated by unskilled
amateurs who are unskilled in fact checking and objective
reporting. However it is the internet itself that functions
as an editing mechanism. Stories as self-corrected as they
move around the information ecosystem. As more information
comes to light, the content changes. It is organic and
continually changing, freed of deadlines and printing times.
The story belongs to no one save the audience.
But didn’t I open by saying that the internet will not kill
print media? If I do not need a newspaper to keep me up
to date with what we are doing to the good people of downtown
Basra because I can get that information on whatever the
iPod ends up becoming next then what exactly do I
need a newspaper for?
Well, in no particular order: the roadworks at the end
of my street, the local design collective launching a new
store around the corner, the new wine bar around the corner,
restaurant reviews, driving hazards near the local school
and changes to garbage day. Yes, it is only the national
dailies that are experiencing reduced readership numbers.
Local papers are positively thriving. In the United
States alone, community, non-daily newspapers have grown
from about 5500 to 7000. Readership of these products has
almost tripled to nearly 70 million every week. This is
a print product that is ideally positioned to benefit from
the rise of user-generated content. Since their inception
community papers have been all about citizen journalism.
A strong web presence means they no longer have to forfeit
stories about high school sport results (for example) to
local television because they only print once a week. They
can even update the results in real time with supporters
texting in score changes and images from the game.
Savvy media types are recognizing that we are right on
the cusp of the biggest shift in marketing history; the
move from demographic to geographic targeting. Only a few
weeks ago, Google (of course) started placing local advertisements
in Google Maps. It is the absolute tip of a very lucrative
iceberg. The newspapers that survive will be the ones that
realise that their role in the market has moved from content
generator to content aggregator –being the portal
that gets targeted and individualised content based on
location and personal taste to their readerbase.
 This is what I need my newspaper for and this is also
what the future of print media will look like in the twenty
first century. In a similar vein to what is happening in
the film industry with the inevitable –and costly-
arrival of digital cinema projectors, there are already
in existence digital printing presses that are smaller,
faster, cheaper and far more flexible than the massive
machines the world currently uses to print their papers.
Positioned in specific regions around your city they can
deliver a unique mix of local and global news –targeted
to you in both a geographic and demographic sense. In fact,
there is no technical reason why each copy cannot be individualised
to each subscriber –it is simply a matter of capturing
that information along with the address when a reader renews
their subscription. Imagine your local metropolitan paper
delivered to you each day with information on America’s
botched nuclear war with Iran, and interview with your
child’s school principal and a free coffee voucher
for the café at the end of your street.
The internet has shown newspapers what their readers actually
want and how they consume and create content and the challenge
is laid at the feet of today’s press barons. The
world changed a lot. Which newspapers are going to change
more than a little?
So the hobo will still have newsprint for his blanket.
But his bed linen will no longer be patterned with stories
of mud slides in Peru but council plans for the restoring
the park he is sleeping in. And if he is a subscriber then
his blanket could potentially inform him of what colour
the bench he is sleeping on is about to be painted.
Gordon White works for the New Zealand Herald. He
can be contacted at gordon.white@nzherald.co.nz
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