National Public Newspaper

With major newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News closing its doors and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer moving online, it’s hard to deny that the Newspaper industry has hit a tipping point (some might call it a state of panic) in which the paper itself (the tangible, made from trees daily newspaper) is no longer a profitable venture. Without a doubt, a primary cause of this is the Internet. With the proliferation of blogs, newspapers moving online, and Craigslist, the Internet has stolen readers and advertising revenues right out of the hands of the printed dailies. But will we really have a future without newspapers, as one source suggests?

Newspaper readership has seen a steady gradual decline over the last ten years, but the number of people who still read papers is significant enough to suggest that there is still demand for papers. The problem, then, is not simply a matter of demand, its a matter of profitability. Craigslist has practically severed the classifieds market, causing millions in revenue loss each year to newspapers across the country. Advertisers too, have moved away from costly print ads to cheaper online advertising. The result of these forces has been a serious slimming of newspaper profit margins.

So is the solution just to give up on papers? Should we and will we soon get our news online? I certainly would miss the crossword puzzles more than anything, but there is also something about reading through a newspaper that is lost when news goes online. Online, certain stories get pushed to the front of the line at the expense of others. I read the New York Times Online almost daily, but every time I pick up the physical paper I find stories that I would never come across on the internet. Online newspapers are limited in their formats.

I assert that the physical paper will not go away. But with out a doubt, the model has to change. There are a number of ways this could occur. One solution is model similar to the ones used by National Public Radio or American Public Media, both not for profit organizations which receive their funding through a combination of government grants, listener donations and corporate underwrites. With NPR, member stations play programming locally. Unknown to many is that the creation of public media organizations like NPR came into being after congress passed The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The result of the public media is not only a publically supported media that is free of advertising, but a dramatic increase in quality of content.

My suggestion is that congress could pass a similar act to create a corporation that helps fund publically supported newspapers. The model would function very similar to public radio. Larger organizations (equivalent to NPR) would create a large body of syndicated content.

Local "stations" (in this case newspapers), would then select from the syndicated content and add in locally relevant stories. Funding would come from a combination of donations, subscriptions, corporate donations and government funding. Like public radio, the newspapers would raise the bar on content, since they would no longer be subject to the confines of "media market," the competitive element of journalism that keeps certain stories (Obama's Dog) on the front page, while more pertinent, but less marketable stories slip to the fringes.

Of course, this would require some serious infrastructure, but with newspapers failing left and right, it's high time to buy up newsrooms and printers while they are cheap.


Bibliography

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (2009). Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 4 20, 2009, from About Public Broadcasting: http://www.cpb.org/aboutpb/

Lieberman, D. (2009, 03 19). Newspaper closings raise fears about industry. USA Today .

Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. (2008). State of The Media. Retrieved 2009, from Daily Newspaper Readership by Age Group: http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/chartland.php?id=981&ct=line&dir=&sort=&c1=1&c2=1&c3=1&c4=1&c5=1&c6=1&c7=0&c8=0&c9=0&c10=0&d3=0&dd3=1