I have seen the face of the newspaper industry's business conundrum, and it belongs to Michael Stephens. Stephens — a librarian, professor of library and information science, tech enthusiast and blogger — recently posted "An Open Letter to the South Bend Tribune" on the occasion of canceling his print subscription.
My discerning friend Tom Billiterri found it while rummaging online for hometown news of Indiana and forwarded it with the comment "a sign of the times."
I could excerpt and paraphrase, but the flavor is best savored by reading the whole thing. Stephens' item is not particularly long, and it's stated with some style.
As I read, I wondered, as when I heard last year about the California paper outsourcing news coverage of city hall to writers in India who would watch meetings on a cable feed, whether this might be a clever put on. But apparently Stephens is just an information hound and a frugal guy, and there's nothing wrong with that. (He alludes to leaving his job at the St. Joseph County Public Library).
Stephens confirmed in an email that he had no ironic intent. As his lead paragraph states, the realization simply crept up on him how most everything he needed (except maybe the Sunday inserts) was now available conveniently online — and free too.
He also shared a highly critical response, which he called "rather heavy-handed," from an anonymous professional acquaintance. Does the calendar "say April 1?" the comment asked. It went on to scold Stephens, for, among other things, gloating, showing no sensitivity to the economics of information production and implying that the American Library Association (which publishes the blog) shares the view that "consumers of local content be readers but not paying customers."
Not what he meant, said Stephens. He might even consider ponying up himself for some of the feeds, as another commenter had suggested, if a micro-payment system were in place.
Tim Harmon, managing editor of the South Bend Tribune, told me by phone that he had not previously seen the letter but thought it was "a nice encapsulation of the benefits and challenges" in the current mixed platform climate. It was useful, he added, that Stephens is coming strictly "from the reader/user viewpoint." without consideration of the economics, which are really for newspaper management to work out.
He did take exception to the part about discontinuing charges for archived articles, Harmon said. "That's not really a profit center for us, but we do need to recoup the cost of making it available…(Stephens' suggestion) seems like going into McDonalds and saying, 'I'd like a free hamburger. It's time.'"
The Tribune is "in the midst of moving to a Web-first operation," Harmon said. He and publisher David Ray believe that many people — not Stephens necessarily — will read both, and perhaps be directed back to the print product by a strengthened Web report. The Tribune is also following a consensus industry strategy of getting information out in every form it can be accessed to the widest possible audience, then coming behind with more revenue.
The open letter brought to mind a conversation provoked by my colleague Roy Peter Clark last October (92 comments to date). Roy argued that journalists have a "duty" to read the print newspaper. Stephens' delight in the free goodies provides a nice flip side of the argument.
I also recalled a stimulating lunchroom conversation at a June 2006 investors meeting with analyst Lauren Rich Fine and Dean Singleton, chairman of MediaNews and a former chairman of the Newspaper Association of America. Singleton said, in effect, that with print customers still worth so much more to advertisers than online visitors, we should not be trying to hasten the shift.
It still makes me squeamish to hear some editors saying just that — get on with the future, lead them to that new place. Even the middle-of-the-road course of developing Web sites as a content-rich, multimedia, easily navigable platform, while keeping distinctive quality content in the print edition, seems to risk herding away guys like Michael Stephens.
By my calculation, using figures provided by Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginnochio, print subscriber Stephens was probably worth roughly $350 a year to the Tribune in advertising revenue and another $160 in circulation revenue. Once he shifts to online, he of course provides no circulation revenue and may generate $50 to $70 yearly in advertising.
If you believe the newspaper industry is currently experiencing the genius of capitalism, Schumpeter's "creative destruction" at its finest, the case could be made for do-it-yourself euthanasia of the failing traditional business model. IBM saw the end of the mainframe era coming and was first to market with personal computers (though later hammered by the less expensive models of Dell and others).
But for those professionally and personally committed to the enduring value of the local content that newspapers produce (and, remember, Stephens values that news and information too), maintaining a healthy revenue stream is a puzzle to which I see no obvious solution.
Thanks for the discussion, gentlemen. I won't try to arbitrate...
