Lary Bloom

Writer, Editor, Teacher

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Saturday, November 26, 2005

"Readers Won't Notice"

My professional alma mater, Knight-Ridder, is trying to put itself up for sale. The chain where I completed my newspaper career, Tribune Company, probably should do the same. These companies, as other media businesses, are still hauling in a ton of money, and have a higher profit margin than most industries. But they suffer, stock-wise, because investors can't see how, ten years from now, newspapers will be the same marketplace force they have been over the last couple of centuries.

In response to Internet competition, newspapers chains have tried to make themselves a more appealing investment by cutting costs. I remember over the years many meetings in which top editors and publishers would say to us something like, "It'll hurt, but readers won't notice."

That always struck me as self-defeating. The newspaper business exists only because of a trust with its readers. The intent of most chains in the last couple of decades has been to undo that trust -- to tell readers that they're making "improvements" when they are actually cutting staff, space, coverage, and expenses.

When you think of growth industries, you think of the need to offer real innovation in order to stay competitive. Computer manufacturers, for example, extend themselves to come up with products that offer more to customers: more memory, quicker response, a greater array of bells and whistles. The newspaper business is just the opposite. It offers its customers less and less, and then wonders why its circulation base dwindles.

I still think newspapers can be better and stay profitable -- can capitalize on their local franchises by becoming the ultimate sources of information. But it'll take publishers and editors who understand that readers aren't nincompoops, and that they can tell the difference between what's better and what's worse.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:18 AM  

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