Yesterday, the front page of the Los Angeles Times featured the start of a four-part series on a quarter-century marriage between a well-regarded lawyer and an Aryan Brotherhood inmate (link). Today, I read that newspaper advertising revenue has seen a stunning drop of 18% in Q3 compared to the same period in 2007 (link). So how are these two things related and what’s a newspaper to do?
I have to confess that I did read the article, and it was an interesting read – I’m glad I read it. But, I like print newspapers, and I want them to survive. And despite their appeal, long-form articles like this just don’t belong in a daily newspaper anymore.
The decline in advertising revenue isn’t a result of this kind of reporting, but these narratives should be one of the first casualties as newspapers look to cut costs. A friend of mine, familiar with such matters, recently told me that veteran L.A. Times reporters used to refer to their paper as the “velvet coffin”, because if you navigated the structure correctly, you could end up writing just a handful of plum stories for ~$200,000 a year and spend most of the year researching and writing books. You’d have an unusually cushy job that you’d want to keep until you died (a little exaggeration never killed anyone, no pun intended).
That was all well and fine in less austere times, but with the newspaper industry losing billions in ad revenue, only the lean will survive. These types of articles (including a recent one about a post-war LAPD gang squad) are routinely based on months of research and, in the case of the gangland story, 100+ interviews. While vastly informative, there are better vehicles for this reporting – like magazines and books.
My thought here is that in order to survive, newspapers will increasingly face challenging and unpleasant business choices. The adage of “cut once, and cut deep” is one that is oft considered by executives facing the unfortunate prospect of layoffs, but I think it also applies here. I’d rather see newspapers make dramatic changes one time and immediately – with an eye towards future sustainability – than witness the print newspaper undergo a slow death by a thousand cuts.
There are scores of changes that publishers will need to consider, and the elimination of the long-form, multi-part narrative is just one small recommendation (maybe pennies in the pot… but you need to start somewhere). By no means am I an expert on such matters, but I do know business basics, and I know that no business will last long when expenditures exceed income.
With future advertising losses expected to continue, now is the time for newspapers to explore new ways of remaining viable. I’d like to see print survive … who’s up for the challenge of ensuring that it does?
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