Speaking of declining newspaper readership…
One of the local newspapers around my university recently announced that they will be closing their doors in July. The Ann Arbor News has been in publication since 1835 for goodness sake and it has been forced to close down due to lack of readership, which means a lack of advertisers that fund it. Granted, they will still be publishing online under a new name and have a print component twice a week, but that’s such a huge difference in the way they run. Check out the story.
This makes me even more concerned about my job future. This is the second big newspaper in my area going under. Well, the Detroit Free Press just went down to twice a week publication, but that’s certainly a massive difference as far as how people are going to be getting their daily news. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado said goodbye in February, a story that was all over the electronic news for about a week or more. How can I not be concerned when newspapers seem to be crumbling left and right?
This makes my research on how to increase print news readership for my college paper even more critical. I don’t want to see it go under like so many other big papers have, even though we are very small. It’s all coming down to a fight for survival, and who knows what the outcome of the battle may be. Obviously, I’m rooting for the survival of newspapers. But they’ve all got some serious work to do to get there, and are basically facing a complete change in everything from design and type of stories to basic operations. God help us!
The newspaper’s demise?
I’ve recently been working with my college newspaper, The Eastern Echo, to increase its readership. In this day and age, it’s hard to compete with all of the electronic media that deliver news on an almost instantaneous basis. Our 3-day per week publication does also put everything online, but we just don’t see the readership. It has been declining for years and it’s become a huge worry.
I think a lot of it is going to come down to design. We’ve got to find ways to drive students and community members to the paper instead of to other sources like other print media, TV and the Internet. Newspapers are just so boring compared to the heavy graphics and full color of the electronic media. And since we’re not in a Harry Potter storybook, the photos can’t move in print like they can electronically. Print media seems to be falling behind more and more, creating an ever increasing gap between print and electronic.
Do I think newspapers will die out? No. They’ve survived radio and television. Why wouldn’t they survive the Internet? It’s a matter of adaptation. Newspapers and the like have got to face their fears and redesign. They’ve got to offer something that can’t be found on the Internet, radio or television. Newspapers need to localize like no other and tailor the format of their stories to their readers specific needs, likes and wants. They’ve got to go full-color and pump up the graphics. A reader doesn’t want to dig through the full story unless they’re fully invested in it. So newspapers have got to provide a ton of ways for the reader to get the same story with as few words as possible.
There are people doing it. I’ve mentioned The Northwest Iowa Review before. That particular paper has been quite successful, even with electronic media being the much flashier, and admittedly stronger, competition.
My newspaper is cutting down to 2 publications per week. We just don’t have the resources to keep publishing 3 times when the third issue of the week is read so little. But we are also looking at going full color once our printer installs a new piece of equipment. But as helpful as that may be, we can’t get very far unless redesigning comes into play. Words on a page make everything gray and boring. We need more and better photos along with graphics and sidebars. If we are able to redesign successfully, we will draw more readers and, in turn advertisers. We will start making more money through that process and then can afford to make the paper an even more successful publication.
Print-media revelations
I just got back from the MPA conference in Grand Rapids. It was a blast, and quite enlightening about the future of print media – newspapers in particular.
The last seminar I went to was conducted by a guy named Peter Wagner from The Northwest Iowa Review. He has managed to actually increase his readership even with trouble of online media. He is responsible for finally convincing me, even though I thought I had been already, that the Internet is not going to kill the newspaper business. Sure, it’s competition. But the key to survival is adaptation.
I love how he adapted his paper. The design and layout is incredibly attractive and inviting. There’s a million ways for a reader to “enter” into a story, which is critical to readability based on how people read the newspaper. That’s something that requires some thinking on the paper’s part. Depending on the story, it can be a tricky thing to set that up. His paper does such a wonderful job at it that it looks very easy.
Another point of interest at the convention was that I found out the new president that took over today is a guy I worked with during my internship with my local paper. He was from another paper in the chain and I knew him from the production sessions. So I know the president of the MPA… who knew.
Pondering the job-related future
With the economy the way it is, I can’t help but worry what will become of me after I graduate college in April. I know people that have been searching for jobs for months, years even and still haven’t had any luck besides the occasional temporary job. And my field is yet another one of those that has been consistently cutting back.
I want to find a place as a staff writer at a local newspaper that prints anywhere from one to three times a week. I had an internship at my small-town newspaper and I loved it. Because it was small, I got to do a variety of things and cover all kinds of stories. I know it won’t pay much. Journalism is one of the lowest paying fields just out of school.
Since I’ve kept in touch with my internship editor, the chain that paper is affiliated with has cut back two or three times now. Everything is going digital in this day and age, but even those jobs are cutting back because of the economy. It’s beginning to get me quite worried about what I’ll be able to do with myself to even get into the field.
I know that it’s been all about networking and finding someone who can get you a place in the field for quite some time. But that weight seems to be getting heavier and heavier lately. Without a network, I think I may be pretty much completely out of luck.
I’m hoping that the MPA conference I’m headed to tomorrow will provide me with some more networking opportunities. Lord knows that at this rate, I’m going to need to know everyone I can get the least bit acquainted with.
Eagerly awaiting the weekend
I’ve been thinking about this weekend for the past week or so. I’m headed to Grand Rapids to attend the Michigan Press Association conference . They’re going to be talking about many of the things I’m looking at for my senior thesis project, which deals with readership of newspapers. I’m going to get the chance to talk to quite a few people that know how to increase readership and have dealt with that for years. It’ll be nice to get some human faces associated with my research.
Though I’m excited to go, I’m not excited to get up at 4:30 a.m. Friday morning after such a long week. And yes, I know it’s only Tuesday. But it feels like it should be Friday already with the amount of work I’ve had on my plate lately. We’ll be staying at a very nice hotel, so it will be a nice change of scenery from my apartment bedroom.
