Piling on: the end of newspapers
I was moving a pile of The Washington Post to the recycling bin when it hit me that newspapers really are finished. It’s just a waste to get a pile of paper everyday that you’re going to turn around and recycle the next day. It just doesn’t make sense.
This was a moment of emotional realization. This was not the result of an analytical or intellectual meditation on the state of the journalism business.
Realizing this is not easy for someone like me. I love to pick up the paper and leaf through it. I look forward to the NYT, the FT and the WSJ. I seek out newspapers wherever I go. I gladly pay for a copy of the AJC and the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
The need for quality news and information is still with us. But the form of the newspaper can’t last much longer.
The free newspapers that show up in our driveway for local news are really the only papers I read. The rest is online. Friedman’s Opinion column is a must read for me on Wednesday and Sunday.
I hope the newspaper companies can figure out online advertising or some other method of staying solvent.
The Business Insider recently did some math and figured out that the New York Times could give every subscriber a Kindle and move to an all-electronic edition and save $300 million a year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-costs-twice-as-much-as-sending-every-subscriber-a-free-kindle
I think this is eventually where newspapers will be headed.