Jeff Jarvis today at his blog, BuzzMachine, deconstructs the newspaper, section by section. He post is an excellent contribution to the debate about the future of newspapers. While it’s written from a US perspective, here in Australia the newspaper sections are the same and the challenges very similar but I suspect our newspaper publishers do not feel the pressure being felt in the US. We are insulated by the size of our marketplace and the lack of true head to head competition. That is not a reason to ignore Jarvis’ opinion or the opinion of other equally eloquent and knowledgeable commentators such as Tim Porter.
In Jarvis’ own words: The point of this exercise is to peel away the layers of the onion that a newspaper no longer needs so it can get to the core of what it really is, what it does best, what it must be to survive and prosper. You can pose the question one of two ways: What do we kill to save money, or what do we kill so we can shift resources to more important things? Whichever, you can’t stay the same and certainly can’t develop new features until you cut the fat and flesh.
Jarvis argues that publishers need to drive newspaper readers online and to reconfigure their print product in terms of content so it is more relevant and cost model so it is a sustainable medium. Once you read the whole blog entry be sure to read the comments.
I wish we were having this conversation about Australian newspapers and that the conversation included newsagents. While News Ltd is in the final weeks of completing its review of newspaper distribution in Australia I’d prefer they put this project aside and engage in a robust review of the future of their newspaper products. Such a review should also include newsagents – the 4,600 small business operators created solely to distribute and retail, newspapers.
The games on competitions, DVDs, CDs, Calendars, Wrapping Paper and every other device being used to gain single copy sales does nothing to address the core issue of relevance which is central to the Jarvis analysis. As one who sells the product and relies of newspaper sales for a key part of traffic to my store, I crave a more relevant product. It goes to the heart of the future of my business and the relevance o the retail channel to which I belong.
Editor and Publisher is also reporting on the Jarvis post.
I wrote this post recently noting how eerily similar the issues are facing newspapers in the U.S. and Australia:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/01/08/the-sun-always-sets-on-media/
The similarities are eerie Jeff yet there is a more vocal conversatioln about disruption in the US than in Australia. Tow newspaper executives told me last year that we would not see any change in Australia for 5 years.