Although there has been discussion about problems in the newspaper business for a decade or more, the volume has really ramped up in the past few months as the financial crisis has put a lot of sterling properties on their back foot.
Claude was looking through an old issue of Monocle the other day and came across a great piece by Tyler Brûlé (an old friend and neighbour of mine from high school days) that anticipated the current crisis by several months and made some really sound suggestions for how newspapers can regain some of their mojo in the current climate.
Brûlé wrote (in December 2007), “2008 may well be the year that some established dailies decide to give up the game and either go under or completely digital.” His suggestion? “…We’d suggest a high-quality 20-page broadsheet… with no ads smaller than full-page, lots of analysis and even more ink on the page.”
Newspaper revitalization is a constant topic of discussion here in our office at Nexalogy. Our weblog and Twitter analysis work consistently demonstrates that most big-issue stories have clear traces in both blogs and microblogs before newspapers ever get to print on a subject – a fact that newspapers must find a way to leverage.
Moving towards a format such as the one Brûlé suggested, complemented by a truly authoritative online presence, would go a long way to ensuring that the good work that newspapers have always done will not simply disappear.
To be authoritative in their markets, newspapers should increase the analysis and contextualization work they do and prospectively search and publish links (in the online edition) to the most important opinion pieces in the blogosphere related to any topic. This would create an ecosystem that they organize and focus – and from which they could profit once again.
