The steady tolling of the death knell for the newspaper as we know it continues. The question has always been what happens next and a possible answer to that may be cresting the hill even as we speak.
The latest bad news for the current newspaper industry is that advertising sales online will surpass newspaper ads for the first time ever. That's even if you include both print and online advertising of the newspapers together. More advertising buyers are shifting their dollars to where they believe the eyeballs are and that's online. The projection for 2011 is that online ads will generate just north of 28 billion dollars while total advertising, print and digital, for the newspaper industry will be only slightly more than 21 billion dollars. 2010 saw an almost 14 per cent increase in digital and just over an 8 percent drop in newspaper ads. The weak economy seemed to hurry some advertisers out the door into the digital age and the economic upturn isn't seen as being all that kind to newspapers either. None of this is much of a surprise to anyone it may simply be that we've passed the tipping point finally.
Which leaves the question of "What's next?". A possible answer to that seems to be ready to debut on January 17 when News Corp.'s iPad newspaper "The Daily" debuts. Of course it was supposed to debut last month so you may not want to hold your breath. What exactly will "The Daily" bring us? It will be a daily electronic newspaper that will cost you 99 cents a week to get. It will make use of video and lots of other multi media stuff (as yet undefined) and maybe even some 3D effects. I have no doubt that old time newspaper folk all over the country are turning up their noses. At least those who still have jobs, for the moment. It's not the way it used to be done, even if you define "the way it used to be done" as recently as the last decade. The same pooh poohing was heard when USA Today arrived. Since 1982 McNewspaper, as it was sneeringly named by its critics, has become the print newspaper with the widest circulation in the U.S. There may be a lesson to be learned there.
I believe that the kind of journalism that the daily newspaper has been home to for several centuries is a vital part of the democratic process. So while I have certain reservations about "The Daily" (namely it's parent corporation and the fact that it's chained to the iPad) I think it is a vital development in journalism and the news.
Journalists generally hate BEING the news. Never the less this may be the most important day and story in journalism in any of our lifetimes. It's not just a business story but has a profound effect on all our basic freedoms.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY. You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010
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