Daily Archives: July 30, 2007

Newspapers

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I’m a newspaper guy; not by trade, by practice. I just love reading newspapers. I love the interface. You can read standing on line, in a subway, on a plane, in the car. Obviously, they are not for real-time news – not like the Internet and radio — but they are my news medium of choice. 
 
News flash: the newspaper business is hurting.  Today’s New York Times had only 3 full-page ads in its first section. The Wall Street Journal had 4. That’s scary. Two of these ads were by Verizon for cell service and one spread was by FedEx/Kinkos. The business plan is teetering, it seems to me.
 
Newspapers have always been about the writing. Bylined writers sell papers, but many papers have stopped promoting their writers because they don’t want them to be bigger than the “paper.” They don’t want sub-brands outshining the master brand. Mistake.
 
Newspapers better get on the stick and start promoting the personalities who bring us the news and their craft, or these smart writers will continue to migrate to the blogosphere with AdSense accounts and kill the business completely. Newspaper writers and news photographers are a unique lot. Let make them important again.