The Turbulent World of News

THE TURBULENT WORLD ON NEWS
[SOURCE: Economic Principals, AUTHOR: David Warsh]
[Commentary] This argument that newspapers are on the ropes misses two key points: the scarcity value of print, and the importance of management. Old advantages die hard. For many of the same reasons that historic cities remain in places for thousands of years -- Paris, London, Rome, Jerusalem and New York are still where they started -- newspapers are likely to remain at the top of the chain that creates and distributes provisional truth and sets the agenda. Because paper and ink are tangible and endure, newspapers are archived, in libraries, on microfilm and in servers; they cannot be changed with a few keystrokes. Because the eye assimilates information much more rapidly than does the ear, newspapers contain much more information than do broadcasts. They hire better people, give them more time to work, offer their readers more durable and satisfying explanations of events than do their electronic brethren. Just as newspapers met the challenges of radio and television, they'll accommodate to the Internet, too, and so remain our most powerful engines of consensus. They'll be smaller, in the future, fewer in number, nimbler, quicker than they were before. Instead of the jumbo jet beloved of city room metaphor, they'll be more like the 737s, 767s and 777s (and, soon enough, the 787s) jets that have replaced the lumbering old behemoths on the forward edge. They'll be more expensive, too, and read by fewer people -- a badge of honor (or an article of conspicuous consumption), a status good, a sign that the reader matters. They'll also be more locally owned, at least in the nation's most vital cities. The problem today is the way the industry has been organized historically, not with newspapers themselves. In their heyday, newspapers were relatively easy to operate. Chains could buy out tired owners of local papers and expect to carry on pretty much as before. Not any more. The selectivity of the McClatchy Company in deciding what to keep and what to sell is a sign of things to come. It seems to me highly unlikely that cities such as Philadelphia and San Jose, or, for that matter, Boston and Los Angeles, are going to remain for long without vigorous independent and locally owned newspapers to cover them. Continuing to wilt under inept management is the alternative. It simply defies the logic of cities that the Chicago Tribune should own the Los Angeles Times, or The New York Times should own The Boston Globe. Newspapers in powerful cities should be locally owned by persons, typically families, involved in their hometown's affairs. Otherwise, they wilt.
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