[nfbwatlk] Fw: [Urban Politics] Urban Politics #274, 2/24/09 SEATTLE ONE PAPER OR NO PAPERTOWN

Fri Feb 27 06:16:21 UTC 2009

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick Licata" <Nick.Licata at Seattle.Gov>
To: <urbanpolitics at speakeasy.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 5:01 PM
Subject: [Urban Politics] Urban Politics #274, 2/24/09 SEATTLE ONE PAPER OR 
NO PAPERTOWN

Urban Politics #274, 2/24/09

By City Councilmember Nick Licata

SEATTLE ONE PAPER OR NO PAPER TOWN

On February 26, 2009, I and the group No News is Bad News, are
co-sponsoring an event at Seattle City Hall to discuss the future of
journalism.

The event, titled "No News is Bad News: Seattle As a No-Newspaper
Town?" was conceived and planned by a group of local bloggers,
journalists, and news readers.

The event will be held in the Bertha Landes Conference Room (off the
5th Avenue entrance) and is free and open to the public.  Registration
is encouraged but not required:  http://nonewsisbadnews.eventbrite.com/

No News is Bad News will feature a panel of speakers, but the focus of
the event is on listening to feedback from the community. Attendees
should arrive expecting to be part of a discussion where they can share
their concerns and comments.
The forum will be moderated by a KIRO Commentator Dave Ross. Panelists
include:
Jay Rosen, a professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter
Journalism Institute. In addition to writing Press Think, Jay blogs on
the Huffington Post, sits on the advisory board of Wikipedia, and
launched NewAssignment.Net, a site for open source reporting.
Art Thiel, a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer since 1980.
There, he has been a sports columnist since 1987.
Kathy Gill, a digital media teacher at the University of Washington,
Department of Communication. Her focus is on digital social interaction
and impact of these technologies on the news media and politics.
Cory Tolbert Haik, an online journalist who has spent the last decade
managing web media. At NOLA.com, site of the Times-Picayune in New
Orleans, she was Managing Editor during Hurricane Katrina. She is
currently the Director of Content for SeattleTimes.com.
For more information about the event, visit
http://www.nonewsisbadnews.org, or contact Dylan Wilbanks at
wnalyd at gmail.com.

MY TAKE

I’d like to share my own insights as an individual who founded a
community newspaper in Seattle, The Seattle Sun (stared in 1974 and
ended in the early 80’s) and has subsequently been publishing this
email newsletter for over twelve years.

Although publishers, editors and reporters engage in journalism because
they presumably enjoy their craft, sustaining that craft is dependent on
the market place. Like any other item produced for exchange value,
whether it be media content or pig ears, the value is determined by the
market, albeit somewhat shaped by government forces to encourage or
discourage that activity through tax laws and prohibitions.

Print newspapers deliver news content in the fields of sports,
politics, weather, natural calamities, comics, editorials, and the list
could go on for some length. Readers consume this content by purchasing
the paper or just picking it up and glancing through it. In either case
the paper attracts readers because of its content. Not all of the
content is equal however. Some content is more valuable than others; not
by any intrinsic attributes but solely determined by the number of
people seeking it. And there is the rub.

Some of the most valuable content in daily newspapers is now delivered
to readers through a different medium. Take the employment classified
ads. A Post Intelligencer manager told me last week that they provided
close to 25% of a typical newspaper’s revenue. Have you checked that
section of the newspaper lately? Compare it to ten years ago. The
decrease in volume reflects the shrinking newspaper market. Toss in
shrinking miscellaneous classifieds and auto ads, and the revenue stream
into a daily newspaper becomes practically a dry gulch.

What happened to that content? It went into the ether, literally into
the electronic ether. Web sites like Craig’s list and others too
numerous to mention have carved up the content into silos dealing with
everything from home and auto sales to antique and pet sales. The
content still exists; it’s just not being delivered on paper.

What is left? Well the right would say that’s what newspapers are.
But pun aside, the remainder is the in-depth news coverage that still a
good portion of citizens appreciate and desire to read.; but not enough
to sustain a volume of readers that advertisers want and at a price they
will pay. Even if newspapers gave away classified space and lost all of
their revenue, the operations cost of laying out, printing and
distributing a paper require staff needs far greater than what is needed
to put something on the internet. It just does not pencil out. The
newspaper is delivering a commodity (news content) that is burdened with
costs that cannot compete with other modes of delivery on a one-to-one
competition.

The solution is either to avoid one-to-one competition with the
internet or to embrace it. Newspapers will have to alter their economic
model to adjust to a smaller and probably more sophisticated, educated
audience. Perhaps they may become more like weekly papers or monthly
magazines; focusing more on features and analysis and less on
“breaking news”. And for those newspapers that give up paper and
become a “news daily” by joining the internet and shedding their old
paper skins they will become more like their current internet rivals
disbursing information freely 24/7 in the hopes of keeping current and
attracting a stream of viewers.

Unless the public, through the exercise of their will through their
government, decides to subsidize newspapers in some fashion, (generally
this type of thing is done through tax laws) expect newspapers to
continue to go out of business and be replaced by the other types of
printed or electronic delivery forms. The critical question that will go
unanswered until a sufficient passage of time will be “Do they serve
the public’s needs better?”

COUNCIL MEMBERS & MAYOR’S EMAIL ADDRESSES

Tim.Burgess at seattle.gov
Sally.Clark at seattle.gov
Richard.Conlin at seattle.gov
Jan.Drago at seattle.gov
Jean.Godden at seattle.gov
Bruce.Harrell at seattle.gov
Nick.Licata at seattle.gov
Richard.McIver at seattle.gov
Tom.Rasmussen at seattle.gov

Citizens are directed to the following website to complete a form to
send an email to the Mayor's Office.
http://www.cityofseattle.net/mayor/citizen_response.htm

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