The Independent, the highly regarded British newspaper, is shutting down its print edition next month. The announcement intensifies the already glaring spotlight on the struggle of journalists to survive in the face of fast-developing technology.
Many members of the Independent’s staff are said to be migrating to the online edition, but more than a few will lose their jobs.
While sympathy is extended to those cast aside, newspaper survivors everywhere are well acquainted with the drill. More and more readers are getting their news from the Internet. Advertising revenue has been stampeded to the online media, especially to the social networks. And the social networks get the word out first, often instantaneously, followed by waves of increasingly sophisticated analysis and commentary.
The glory days of the print media are over, and in fact some would say their demise is just around the corner, if not long overdue.
The end of the Independent’s print operation coincides with fresh warnings from scientists and sociologists about the robot’s imminent superiority over its human creator. In the news media, of course, the term “robots” implies not talking, walking, human-shaped machines but brain-only devices that use those complicated algorithms to compose articles from a pool of supplied facts. They can’t possibly replace reporters, yet, clever with words not expecting a salary, they’re increasingly found on newspaper copy desks churning out the more mundane, number-intensive stories.
The loss of the printed newspaper’s ability to be the first to inform – the very foundation of its existence – was a blow from which the industry cannot fully recover. The social media have ably annexed that task and their “citizen journalists” are fast catching up with the professionals when it comes to putting the news into useful perspective.
The share of advertising revenue allocated to print newspapers has shrunk to the point where it no longer covers even basic overhead costs. And this is an expensive business, with its staffing and presses and delivery costs.
Newspapers were quick to adapt to the Internet revolution, but until recently they were sluggish in shifting the bulk of investment away from an outdated business structure that became an albatross – and then a tombstone.
Online journalism has its own struggles. Operating costs might be cheaper, but that in turn means the editors and reporters are paid significantly less.
Advertisers, for all their interest in reaching the cyber-masses, have proved miserly, believing they shouldn’t have pay the same rates that print demanded.
Nevertheless, the Internet is penetrating deeper and deeper into our lives, and so that’s where we’ll live. In the future there will always be readers who prefer the feel of paper and the vague scent of ink in their consumption of the news, just as there’ll always be those who want a book in the hand rather than a Kindle. But in numbers these devotees cannot assure the printed newspaper’s survival.
The newspaper in its print form has only one chance of surviving, and that is to provide a different product than the social networks offer. By their nature the social media will share whatever the newspapers publish – steal or borrow, as you like – but this would be a small price to pay if the papers want to continue. They need to offer stories worth stealing, or at least sharing.