Print media has been on its death bed for many years now. It would only be a fool not to have seen it coming and being replaced by the internet. There are many reasons in my view for the death of the print media. The advent of blogs over the past few years has had a major impact on how people get their news.
Evelyne Bevort, Associate Director, Centre de Liaison de lEnseignement et des Moyens dInformation in France stated last year at the conference on New Media and the Press Freedom Dimension that if you ask 10 youths about an event, you will receive 10 different accounts of the very same event. Not views or opinions but accounts. The reason for this is that there is such a wide variety of news generators on the internet that readers are spoilt for choice.
. A newspaper is a static object and what is scribbled on it is but only one opinion, one account of the event. It is a one way stream of information and unlike having a stack of DVDs where you have a choice of what you wanted to watch, or an internet forum where you are allowed to express your views newspapers by its very nature is static and the news is dated by the time it is printed. Very few newspapers in my view ever find the political center and I view the main stream media as being more left leaning in their reporting. Hence I also have to read a more right leaning publications to form my own opinion. How else can one be a citizen of this world with an informed opinion by only listening to the tree hugging, politically correct, gumbuya singing crowd? When Zogby did a survey to find where people got their news the results had not been much of a surprise as it only reaffirms that more people are on the internet. These are the stats:
. Internet Sites 39.9% Television 31.5% Newspapers 12.2% Radio. 12.1% Magazines .8% Blogs 1.5%
. Most people still get their news from the internet. It did not however define Internet Sites as that could still be from the main news websites such as CNN, the BBC or the Sunday Times. Internet sites in my view could also be viewed as being an extension of the television and print media as they made a specific category for blogs. It did however ask which they trusted the most and there one would logically assume that my first assumption was incorrect with the definition of Internet Sites as it would indicate that these excluded main stream news websites.
Internet sites 33.2% Television 21.3% Newspaper 16.0% Radio 14.0% Magazine 2.0% Blogs 1.7%
. One could assume that they would be referring to Websites which hold alternative views to that of the main stream media. Even though I am not white, I do enjoy reading the views from the American Renaissance (AmRen) website. Reading and understanding the views from the left and the right leaves me well balanced in my opinions and maybe more should too.
. The ways in which people WANT to receive their news are changing and the main stream media has been very reluctant to change their ways of doing business. Much like the RIAA suing every possible person for downloading MP3 music from the internet thinking it will solve the problem, newspapers and television stations try and tell us what how we will receive what we want and not giving us as readers and consumers any options as to how we want it.There is always a profitable way forward if the media wishes to innovate.
I think a good South African example of business selling news and views that are doing it the correct way is NoseWeek. To me that must be one of the best formats they run in terms of marketing their wares online. Each month they will only give you the highlights of their main stories, and the news from the previous month is accessible free of charge for a month. So if you want this months news, you have the option of buying a subscription and having access to their archives and the current news. Alternatively you can read all their news one month in arrears with no access to their archives free of charge. They also allow comments on their system so that you can voice your opinion on an article. I think the format is very forward thinking, however their layout is a pain to read and the front page comes across as being very jumbled. None the less, Noseweek in my view has a very productive marketing model that has been adapted from being a straight print magazine to one that embraces all that online media has to offer. Give people something for free, just enough to keep them as followers. Then convert them to paying customers and allowing them the freedom to make even more choices. Maybe, just maybe they will have more online paying readers than those who still buy the actual physical print itself in the future.
There is always money to be made selling the news. The question is how to best balance what you sell with how you sell it online to stay profitable.
(12/8/2008)
- The Times, South Africa
