The April 2009 cover story in PRESSTIME, the magazine of the Newspaper Association of America, asked 10 experts — inside and outside the industry — to write a mission statement for today’s core print product, say what they would keep if they were starting a print newspaper from scratch, and predict what that product would look like in two, five and 10 years. The piece was written by Mary Lynn F. Jones.
The guest list: Ken Doctor of Content Bridges and Outsell Inc.; Mario R. Garcia of Garcia Media; Juan Antonio Giner of INNOVATION in Pamplona, Spain; Charlotte H. Hall of the Orlando Sentinel and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Alan Jacobson of Brass Tacks Design; Ted Leonsis of Lincoln Holdings LLC and vice chairman emeritus of AOL; Tim J. McGuire of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University; Alan D. Mutter, the blogger behind Reflections of a Newsosaur; Kenneth A. Paulson of the Newseum; and Howard Weaver, formerly vice president of news for The McClatchy Co.
The story opens by noting that despite the repeated death knells, print still generated the overwhelming majority of newspaper company revenue. Paulson defined the print newspaper’s job as one that should
“accurately reflect what is going on in the community, meet readers’ needs for news and information and act as a watchdog on government”
Mutter argued that the framing itself was wrong:
Even though the newspaper generates 90 percent of a typical publisher’s sales, it is a mistake to think of it as the “core product.” The true core products of a newspaper company are its abilities to produce compelling content, build large audiences, sell advertising and make a profit.
On cutting sections and publication days, Doctor coined a term and a warning:
I call it “dayscrapping,” and it needs to be done judiciously. … Let’s not, above all, fool ourselves. Cutting back the core product doesn’t strengthen it. It may be a necessary evil, but pitching a less-is-more approach to readers won’t fool them.
Hall described the relationship between the two platforms in an image that stuck: print “stops the clock once a day,” and
One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid.
The predictions varied widely. Garcia expected compact and A4 formats inspired by magazines and books; Paulson expected smaller papers, higher single-copy prices and more reliance on circulation revenue; Hall declined to predict past two years. Jacobson was the most blunt:
In less than a year, there will be very few seven-day-a-week newspapers. In less than five years, newspapers will print for Sunday only. In less than 10 years, no newspapers will be printed.
The article notes that an expanded version of the report, including a podcast, was available at www.naa.org/presstime.