Death of Newspapers

            The American newspaper’s death throes can be heard across the land. I worked as a reporter and editor in the industry for 45 years – starting when I was 20 in my small hometown of Sterling, Colorado. Now the American newspaper is dying and part of my soul is going with it. It’s a shame because it doesn’t have to be.

            The newspaper is not being killed by the Internet, cable television, direct mail or apathetic readers. It is being killed by bottom-line owners who have made dollars much more important than words. Basically, an owner’s love for his newspaper has to be greater than his love for a buck. It’s not really a place for a Sam Walton – or a Rupert Murdoch. But it can, when managed properly, be a profitable and a tremendous asset to the community.

            American newspapers are disappearing because they are being manhandled by business moguls who do not care about the newspaper industry, tradition or all the news that is fit to print. The wealthy buy up newspapers solely to make big bucks, but they obviously don’t know how to do it. The truth is that they could be very successful if they went about it right. Chains are gobbling up newspapers across the country. Editors, writers and designers are slashed. The goal is to use the same staff and stories at many newspapers to cut costs. It undoubtedly works – in the short term. The long term means disaster and the end of modern newspapers. When individuality and initiative are gone, so will the newspaper be.

            The problem, which has been rife for decades, really came to the fore in the late 1980s. Newspapers existed on advertising and there was not enough due to poor salesmanship and product and competition from the Internet, cable TV and direct mail. Newspapers reacted by reducing newshole, closing shop and laying off staff.

            Newspapers fill a unique niche. They can offer local, state, national and international news with depth and insight. No other media can cover readers’

small world like a newspaper. Where else can you get a profile of the recent passing of a 90-year-old man whose restaurant served the area for 65 years? Where else can you get a personality piece on the star goalie of a local high school team? Where are you going to get calendars of events of local senior citizen groups, school lunches and boy and girl scouts.

            My contention is that people still love and will read newspapers if they can get everything that they cannot get any place. So how can a newspaper owner survive in this modern age? By reducing staff, newshole and costs?

            No.

            By offering a quality product. Then readers will subscribe and advertisers will advertise. This is a very simplistic solution. Newspaper people have claimed this for years. But there is no secret. One makes the newspaper indispensable to people. Once advertisers see that many are reading the paper, they won’t be able to resist.

            So how do you make a newspaper irresistible? It’s not by making it the same as every other newspaper. It needs to have its own columnists and writers. When I travel across the U.S, I enjoy reading different newspapers with different writers and columnists. If everything is the same, then newspapers will die from lack of interest.

            So owners, beware. If you want to make money, don’t lay off and cut newshole. Present a great product, and you will have great results.

            Don Lechman is a former critic reporter and editor for the Daily Breeze. Now he teaches writing at Harbor College in Wilmington.