Wow, I have to say I'm kind of amazed at the replies I've gotten to my last post . It was really cool to hear from the folks at the Greensboro News & Record and in particular from the folks at the Winston-Salem Journal. Click here to see their comments. Actually, it's really cool knowing that someone is reading this thing at all.
Anyway, here are a couple of final thoughts on the Triad newspapers, at least for now:
- I think it is absolutely vital that the Triad continue to have two quality newspapers, no matter what form they take. I used to deliver the Washington Star in D.C. and my mom was an avid Washington Post reader, so I got to see the advantage of having two good papers in town. (The Star's sports and opinion sections kicked the Post's tail, and it was the last afternoon paper I can remember reading.) Then the Star went belly up and D.C. became a one "voice" town. (The Washington Times came along a few years later, but it's really a conservative mouthpiece that makes the Posts liberal inclinations look balanced.) Let's just say that with a newspaper monopoly the region would suffer because:
- You get one high-profile editorial viewpoint for the entire region, which can lead to a true feeling of exclusion for a large part of the populace.
- You get less coverage of local issues. The press, the Fourth Estate, is a vital part of the "balance of powers" and without in-depth coverage of local issues you leave the door open for opportunists.
- Competition keeps people hungry; without it you get stagnation and little or no innovation.
- I think both papers are excellent. Call it a big city bias, but I really expected to get sub-par papers when I moved here. They have been anything but. I honestly think that the Journal is a better paper than the Washington Post, and as far as I can tell so is the News & Record. Sure they inhabit different strata in the media landscape, but the Journal and N&R do a better job in their space than the Post does in its space.
- Last, it truly is imperative for both newspapers to get serious about expanding their domain from paper to multi-media. I've heard/read some comments about how the current hubaloo is a repeat of the death nell that was tolled for newspapers with the advent of local TV news. That's a bunch of hogwash if for no other reason than because the landscape is changing for TV news too!
What we are seeing is a change in the living patterns of most Americans. How the average 25 year old gets her information is radically different from her parents. How many 50 year olds IM on a regular basis? How many utilize the text messaging on their phones? How many 25 year olds actually pick up a newspaper on a regular basis? How many 25 year olds watch the news? How many 50 year olds have a news feed on their computer? Yet they can all relate to the same big stories. Why? Because the news is the same, only the delivery is different.
The message then is that for newspapers to remain relevant, to return to a growth mode from the atrophy mode which they've been living in, and to retain their influence, they must find their audience wherever the audience wants to be found.
And they should not lose sight of the fact that they still hold a tremendous strategic advantage that is very hard for any upstart to overcome: they have the feet on the street with the contacts and institutional knowledge that they've developed over the decades. It would be a shame if it were to go to waste.
