Got News?
Moore, the mad scientist of media management, has leveraged his new film "Sicko" into numerous stories of late, among them the controversy surrounding his trip to Cuba. But most recently, he's gotten some press that even he may find unwelcome: News reports on the fact that his film was pirated and uploaded onto the Internet for everyone to see.
This got me to thinking: Know who else fells your pain, Mike? America's newspapers. Every year, the newsmedia likes to report on the fact that newspaper circulations are slipping further and further. People like to say it's a symptom of Americans' disinterest or dumbing down. It might even be Proof Of The Death Of Mainstream Media.
Hold a second. What gets entirely overlooked in the "Google Is Killing Newspapers!!" hoopla is the fact that newspapers are cannibalizing themselves on a daily basis by offering everything – or nearly all their content – free to anybody with an Internet connection. Hell, the very fact their circulations aren't nosediving while they give their product away online is – though a tad panglossian – reason to be reassured about the public's news appetite, not mourn the death of American curiosity. (Do you think if you could watch "Fantastic Four" for free on-demand last weekend that the box office would only go down 8 percent? Think about it.)
A little more good news came in the form of an Editor and Publisher article yesterda, which reported on a study showing good news about newspapers versus the Internet:
A telephone survey of adults who said they visited an online newspaper in the past seven days found that "crossover" users -- adults who read both print and online newspapers -- make up the largest segment. Eighty-one percent of newspaper Web site users said they also read the print edition in the last seven days.While I take issue with the overly optimistic E&P characterization of this finding – the question was "when was the last time you read or looked into" the local paper, not merely 'read' – it further confirms my view that the problem isn't on the audience side , as some large font headlines would have you think. The public isn't losing interest. And the mainstream media isn't really going anywhere – they're getting their content out in different ways. (Example: You reading this.)
My Irish immigrant grandmother was fond of the old bromide, "Why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?" (Twentysomethings, ask your parents.) While the reality of the news industry situation may not be great news for the cows of the marketplace, i.e. newspaper publishers, we as a society are getting more in the way of information/calcium than ever.
Got news? Yes, we do.
