Can We Save "The News"?

I have been a huge fan of David Horsey for many years.  Normally, he's a man of potent cartoons and very few words.  

After the Seattle newspaper which employed him ceased publication he moved to The Los Angeles Times and this week the man of pictures not words penned a column for his new employer that isn't about radio, but resonates for all media, "Newspapers have a future, if they can avoid being 'click whores'" (click to read it!)

When Horsey decides he has something to say that takes more than just a cartoon, he has my support and attention.

Media has great responsibility to the people who read, watch and listen to us, far more important to our society than merely making money.

And, as the history and economics of newspapers has proven, when we do it responsibly big money comes too.

Who's going to fill their shoes?

A Continuing Series: Stuff I Don't Understand

• Radio takes 15.6% of a consumer’s media day but, even under the rosiest analysis, its share of advertising dollars is just 11%.
  
  
• Only 3.17% of RBR readers say “in the new digital environment, the main competition for local Television is newspaper and just 5.13% think radio’s main competition is newspaper. If so, how come we still let them bill a third of all media ad dollars in many markets?

I'll repeat it: No One Ever Said Life Was Supposed to Make Sense

It's The Internet, Stupid

Zogby shows that only one in ten would choose radio as their only source for news, but when it comes to "trust" our medium does better and the 'net does worse.

Implications?

Drop or trim down the length of 'news' and integrate talk and info about what's important right now into everything you do making use of your 'experts,' every minute, every day.

No, it's not as easy as doing six five minute newscasts per day and telling yourself that you still do news, of course, but self-deception can be that way, sometimes.

The need for lengthy news on radio is inversely related to the growth of the internet. That's somewhat new, but just because you have sponsors willing to pay for something, doesn't mean listeners care a whit about it.

That isn't new. Savvy programmers have been fighting that battle since formats replaced block programming six decades ago.

Seattle Times Grows As The Competition Quits, But The Average Newspaper Readership Is Down

Daily circulation of The Seattle Times has grown by nearly 50 percent in the initial period since the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped publishing a newspaper in mid-March, according to Times reporter Lynda V. Mapes.

That was just about the only good (?) news in AP's report that Audit Bureau of Circulation that circulation of the average U.S. newspaper from 395 dailies declined 7.1 percent in the October-March period from the same six-month span in 2007-2008.

Note to sales: you know that this is opportunity knocking, don't you?