To paraphrase Samuel Clemens, reports of the death of newspapers have been greatly exaggerated.
In our opinion, there has been all too much gnashing of teeth and lamenting over the fix that some papers find themselves in. The word “some†in the last sentence being all-important. Most papers are much more like the one you have in your hands — a small weekly with local or regional ownership. And although the economy has not been kind to them, most are in decent shape and many are downright profitable.
What is dying – or, more accurately, unraveling – is the business model that drove media consolidation. The movement, which rolled many privately owned small and mid-sized metro dailies into ever-growing newspaper chains, may have made sense on the upside, but there has been hell to pay on the downside.
The public-owned companies that were built by consolidation are by nature beholden to their shareholders and, as they unravel, the idea that papers are an integral part of the communities they serve is, well, a nice thought but not much of a revenue generator. As the debt burden that many of these chains are under continues to sap resources, the emphasis has not been on the poor decision making that led to the chains’ unhealthy buying sprees. No, what we hear about is how the industry is struggling to keep readers as ad sales continue to shrink. (That assessment usually precedes another round of “necessary†staff cuts.)
As a testament to the power of papers, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Oh, and a vicious cycle too. We wish they’d stop poor mouthing. It’s making it hard on the rest of us.
Reporters and ad reps of papers all over — even those that are doing well — are having the woes and bleak futures of newspapers played back to them by sources and clients. And there are some people who are relishing the imminent demise of the printed product. It may be a while before that happens though.
Those who know the story of the founding of this newspaper may recall that one of the things that spurred us on was a survey by a group of Carolina students that found that even here — in one of the most wired and net-friendly towns in the Southeast — the desire for a printed newspaper was strong.
Our experience over the past two years has underlined that finding and added an exclamation point. Few things are more satisfying than watching someone stop at a newsbox and say to the person they’re with “I need to get my Citizen.â€
Our recently announced expansion in circulation and coverage is a result of that kind of community ownership and interest. We grew not because of marketing or by upping mass, random distribution, but because each week more and more people chose to pick up a paper to read what we put together. In that regard, we are just another case for the idea that as a medium newspapers are still quite popular.
Technology and business models may change, but the secret to success has not altered all that much in the industry’s 500-or-so-year history: A sense of place, a clear voice and a good read with news of the day that matters to people.
Thank you for reading our newspaper and making it your own.