With the Internet I find I get more instant "this just happened" news (without analysis, with lame analyis or with inaccuracies). I'd be willing to go to a weekly format with more thoughtful analysis. Take The Economist for instance, it's not what I read to find out what's happening now. It's what I read to find out why things are happening.
If you were running the New York Times, what would you do?
Shut off the print edition right now. You’ve got to play offense. You’ve got to do what Intel did in ’85 when it was getting killed by the Japanese in memory chips, which was its dominant business. And it famously killed the business--shut it off and focused on its much smaller business, microprocessors, because that was going to be the market of the future. And the minute Intel got out of playing defense and into playing offense, its future was secure. The newspaper companies have to do exactly the same thing.
The financial markets have discounted forward to the terminal conclusion for newspapers, which is basically bankruptcy. So at this point, if you’re one of these major newspapers and you shut off the printing press, your stock price would probably go up, despite the fact that you would lose 90 percent of your revenue. Then you play offense. And guess what? You’re an internet company.
I have to agree with you, when it comes down to the internet, its all about the ease of distributing information about whats happening RIGHT NOW. Take most of the technology blogs, and even HN for example. A great portion of what's on here or coming through the blogs is an overview or look at whats happening right now, today, or information about what somebody did TODAY. I also use these sources everyday as a primary source of what's going on. However, when I want a full fledged story about not only what is happened but what has happened and why it happened I tend to go to other sources, the Wall Street Journal for example.
However, what you need to notice is that even the more complex periodicals are also moving online. Newsweek, the WSJ itself, the New York Times, and so on and so forth. I think it truly is just a matter of time before even these move to a totally online system. No more Time Magazine delivered every day to your mailbox, instead its in your inbox.
I work at a newspaper. It was just announced that our presses are shutting down and our daily print edition will be printed on the presses of our mortal enemy that is no longer our mortal enemy (expect that to be a trend).
Newspapers are feeling inadequate compared to the Internet at large so they're starting to churn out more and more "this just happened" news. Unfortunately, "this just happened" news is an easy-to-find commodity, so the strategy is doomed, IMHO.
I think newspapers should cancel their AP subscriptions and change their print editions almost entirely to what they call 'enterprise journalism' (answering the why's), and their online editions to local in-depth analysis. I'm not sure I would bother with breaking news at all, to be frank. There are too many other channels for that.
In short, I would leave the "this just happened" alone and focus on being the local Economist (which I've been saying before I ever read timtrueman's comment, which I completely agree with).
Not really. It's a little more complex, as I've learned.
* Early 2000's: Newspaper uses soon to be outdated technologies and eyeballs strategy.
* Mid 2000's: Housing boom allows newspaper to rake in cash and hire lots of help.
* 2007: Housing crash kills your advertising revenue, exposes bloat and deteriorating revenue in classifieds.
* 2007-2008: Unless you're the NYTimes, your 10-year-old CMS/publishing platform offers you almost no way to innovate.
* 2008: You throw yourself into the online world as much as possible, but you aren't sure if you can afford to invest in your long-term future (MUST. MAKE. MONEY. NOW.).
* 2008-2009: Massive uncertainty and an identity crisis of great proportions.
I hope more newspapers follow their lead. Printing paper editions daily sounds inefficient and wasteful. By the time the morning newspaper hits the streets everyone already heard about the news on TV or read about it online. I expect daily print to go away as we get better choices for reading news on the go and more people start using Kindles, netbooks, iPhones, etc.
It's not as clear-cut-wasteful as you might assume. I wondered about this when I read your line and mused on whether newspapers or websites are more wasteful. Here's a Slate article I dug out:
I like the interface of reading certain things in physically better than online. This includes, for example, the New York Times as well as Edge Magazine.
I think it will be a while before non-PC devices are the primary way people get their electronic news (at least five years).
With books, yes. With newspapers, no. I know that with some people, it's a ritual, but I can't imagine doing the flip and fold and flip and fold and wrinkle and crumple and cuss and tear routine with a newspaper on the subway or bus; instead, I just hold my phone up and read the news.
The runaway success of the iPhone should open the way for handheld internet readers to become a part of everyday life for more than just gadget geeks.
5 years sounds reasonable. Given that it took them 2 years to plan this out (that's how I read the article at least) this would be a good time for others to start thinking about this. Also given the cost savings of not having to print daily it might be worth it for many newspapers to switch much sooner (say by 2010).
