Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

TEMPLE: Time to play offense, not defense

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 7, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  
Steelers fans celebrate a Pittsburgh touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday. Comparing Super Bowl viewers to newspaper readers is not an apples-to-apples analogy.

Photo by John Heller © Associated Press

Steelers fans celebrate a Pittsburgh touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday. Comparing Super Bowl viewers to newspaper readers is not an apples-to-apples analogy.

More News Columns & Blogs

More stories »

I admit, I am proud to be a newspaperman. I actually love the form, ink on newsprint.

But in these gloomy times for the industry, positive pronouncements from its most ardent supporters sometimes make me feel like slinking away, pretending I don't share their particular passion.

This week, a group of newspaper executives, Newspaperproject.org, distributed an ad for the day after the Super Bowl claiming, "More people will read a newspaper today than watched yesterday's big game."

Look, I understand that the naysayers about newspapers have to be countered. As difficult as things are, and not just here in Denver, we still have a good story to tell.

Newspapers tend to cover themselves and the plight of their industry in a way that TV and radio news don't. That has its drawbacks. The public thinks we're the only ones struggling. That's not true. TV newscasts are seeing their audiences shrink. They just don't make a big deal out of it.

But I'm not on board with the latest marketing pitch. There's a huge difference between 97.5 million people watching a single event at the same time on the same channel and a similar amount of people looking at one of the nation's roughly 1,400 daily newspapers over a 24-hour period. (By the way, Nielsen says 151.6 million people watched at least six minutes of the game. About 105 million people read a daily newspaper on a typical day.)

Chest pounding has its place. (You don't have to tell me that I'm sometimes criticized for doing just that on behalf of the Rocky.) But it only goes so far. Young reporters are taught to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Does anybody really think sitting glued to your couch for four hours, as riveted to the advertisements as to the game action, is in any way comparable to reading a newspaper or its Web site?

I don't think so. And by pushing that line we threaten to undermine our own credibility even further.

I'm not ornery about the latest attempts to support newspapers because of our own peculiar problems at the Rocky. Being on the auction block isn't fun. You've heard about sailing ships being stuck in the doldrums. That's what it sometimes feels like here. Which is why I so admire the work our staff continues to do.

Our goal remains to live up to our commitment to inform - and to entertain and inspire, too. People judge the value of products by their own experience, and we don't want to do anything that would undermine the bond we've built with many.

I think it would be much better if newspaper proponents would focus on the importance of journalism, however it's created and distributed. We need to build understanding of why journalism is valuable, and what sets it apart from infotainment or advocacy.

I was lucky this week to attend a speech at the University of Denver by Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices Online. The Web site, which publishes and translates blogs from around the world, was this year's recipient of the Anvil of Freedom Award, presented as part of the Edward W. Estlow annual lecture series.

Zuckerman's organization doesn't have a physical newsroom. It's a global operation connected virtually. Its Web site, globalvoicesonline.org, is a "community- produced, citizen news wire."

One of the lessons they've learned, he said, is that "it's easier to speak than to be heard."

Although many of the blogs on his site seem to lack the context and background you might expect from a traditional news story, they offer something different, a homegrown perspective that's rooted in places many of us rarely pay attention to.

At a time when economic pressures are causing many major American newspapers to cut back drastically on original foreign reporting, his talk made me see a possible way for newspapers to open the world to their readers, not just internationally, but also locally.

Many citizens are speaking. Could we help the best ones be heard? So far, newspapers haven't been the ones inventing better ways to share news and information.

We know today that even the finest newspapers are facing serious challenges.

The answer isn't just to make the case that our industry is vital.

It's to find new ways to connect and build understanding between people. Instead of arguing all is well, we should prove through our actions that newspapers have an important role to play.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

Comments

  • February 7, 2009

    8:10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SoberIrishMan writes:

    We as dog owners cannot let the newspaper industry go under. We MUST have cheap, puppy training paper. WHERE WILL THE PUPPIES POOP AND PEE???

    And what about starting a fire in the old fireplace? Those Quiklite mini logs don't work at all! We MUST have the NEWSPAPER!!

  • February 7, 2009

    9:26 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSWren writes:

    Citizens must have good information, our our system of representative democracy will die.

    This crisis is an opportunity to make a change for the better.

    How? That will be the topic at an upcoming meeting of the new Denver Startup Forum. For an invitation, join (free) at http://DenverStartupForum.ning.com.

  • February 7, 2009

    3:23 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    p_myers661 writes:

    Mr. Temple, I can't figure out why the DNA is letting the Post get away with robbing the till, so to speak, and then saying they aren't responsible nor liable because they are going to buy the cash register.

    RMN has a financial interest in making the Post pay back the money and add a penalty for bad faith. It could be an incentive for a buyer. It would be a major liability for the Post if there were anyone willing to fight for the Rocky even as a weekly with daily online. Please try. I'll even read Stein if it will offset the Post being the only paper.

    You might make the online version available for free with ads and available for cost without ads. I only used to buy the paper for the food and Sunday ads. Now I get those ads online. I had to, the paper boxes don't carry the versions with ads anymore.

    A newspaper is a gift in a box. The box is the ads. Lose the box, and you don't have a gift.

  • February 9, 2009

    11:43 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    AlanJacobson writes:

    Time's "Modest Proposal" to save newspapers is delivered in a form that is remarkably modest itself – its 56 pages are barely thick enough to shim a coffee table, let alone support an entire industry.

    Time may be girded in gravitas, but its physical presence lacks heft. The pot is calling the kettle black while newspapers and magazines head into the red.

    Newspapers may want to fight back, but against whom? Craig Newmark, the guy who reinvented classifieds, or Al Gore, the guy who invented the Internet?

    A recent commenter on Alan Mutter's superb blog said, "The problem with media companies is that they don't know how to build a successful website from scratch. Very few newspaper and local media companies have successfully established new web enterprises that weren't leveraging their local brands."

    Mutter calls this failure "profound." Furthermore, he says:

    "The reason young people don't gravitate to newspaper websites is that most sites are more newspaper than web: staid, static and largely un-interactive. In other words, 1995-style shovelware won't cut it."

    While Mutter delivers answers, Jeff Jarvis asks "What Would Google Do?" Based on Jarvis' book, it's safe to assume that Google would not deploy the kind of lackluster sites that Jarvis directed for Newhouse's newspapers until 2005, where he was president and creative director. Ultimately, it's these people who are responsible for the failure of newspapers to monetize online, which ultimately is driving the downfall of newspapers.

    Here's something else Google wouldn't do: create new sites mired in old thinking. Globalpost, minnpost, voiceofsandiego and stlbeacon will fail because they merely replicate the content and revenue strategies that haven't worked for newspapers. None of these can generate the cash they need to be sustainable. That's why they depend upon handouts.

    But consider this:

    realpeoplerealstuff, videojobshop and tweentribune are launching in March with the support of major American newspapers. These sites represent the new breed of news and advertising sites. They embody the new fundamentals: niche, youth, usability, UGC, geo- and demographically targeted advertising, stickiness, video, automation, mobile, distributive editing and fun.

    These sites are coming to your town - with or without the local newspaper's imprimatur. But they're coming.

    So go ahead. Pick up the current issue of Time. Its slimness speaks volumes.

    Permalink: http://www.brasstacksdesign.com/bell_...

  • February 9, 2009

    11:47 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    edwardallen writes:

    Your temerity is stunning. After dragging down the Rocky into the state it is today, you now plea for the future of newspapers as a vehicle for common understanding. But you didn't do this during your regime at this paper, did you? Bland stories about cute puppies doesn't provide any fodder for understanding, and editorial decisions cutting back on the news hole do not give us much to talk about. So from your death bed, you are now calling for a restoration of the importance of the mission of journalism. How hypocritical is that?