How newspapers will survive

Are major local newspapers doomed? Do we face a future in which we'll get our news from highly subjective blogs, instead of carefully researched articles prepared by well-paid professional journalists backed by staffs of researchers?

At Dan Rottenberg's invitation, I recently attended a panel discussion on the future of journalism in the age of electronic publishing at the Franklin Inn Club, the watering hole for Philadelphia intellectuals. From his vantage point as a print journalist who now edits Broad Street Review online, Dan presented a factual, forward-looking case for the advantages of electronic publishing. But I came away convinced that many journalists and readers still haven't grasped the potential of paper-free publications.

For one thing, many people don't seem to understand that Amazon's Kindle is the first commercially successful application of a new technology. The display on the Kindle isn't a screen, like the screen on your TV or computer monitor. It's a material called "electronic paper" or "programmable paper." Essentially, it's a sheet of paper covered with dots that can change color. Hit the appropriate control and the dots form the text of the next page. You can even read by reflected light, just the way you read print.

If this stuff continues to improve, the ultimate electronic reader may well be a book with a changeable text. Finish reading Dan Rottenberg's Death of a Gunfighter, work the controls, and the text morphs into The Collected Science Fiction Stories of Tom Purdom (to give you two examples chosen at random).

Lighten your load

In his talk, Dan noted that people seem unwilling to pay for words they read on the web. Consequently, web-based publications must depend on advertising.

On the other hand, readers do appear willing to pay for material they read offline. As I noted in my recent essay on this subject, thousands of writers currently receive royalty checks for electronic reprints from an e-publisher called Fictionwise. Fictionwise customers have been paying for copy even though most of them seem to read it on small-screen personal digital assistants like the Palm Pilot. They're already carrying a PDA (personal digital assistant), so they reduce their physical load by transferring their reading material to their electronic sidekick. The Kindle has expanded that market by offering travelers and commuters a better display than PDAs have provided.

It's possible, therefore, to visualize a subscriber-supported newspaper that's circulated through e-readers like the Kindle. But that scenario creates problems for the advertising half of the cash flow. In the present state of the technology, given the size of the display on a hand-held reader, you can't place advertising and text on the same page.

Cost savings galore

But does a publisher need advertising? Electronic publications don't have to pay printers, paper manufacturers, truck drivers or newsstand vendors. The money an e-paper saves on those items could compensate for much if not all of the lost advertising.

Electronic publishing also opens up new opportunities to turn a profit. As I said in my earlier piece, I'm confident that publishers will find some way to make money out of e-publishing. But here are some thoughts I've come up with, just to show you what's possible.

Bundle and exploit. At some point in the near future, electronic readers will be so cheap that newspapers will treat them the way phone companies currently treat cell phones. Subscribers will get the reader bundled with their subscriptions. Once a news company gets people locked into its e-reader, it can exploit the connection. A newspaper could offer a bookstore chain an exclusive link to its reader, for example, and collect a commission on every book downloaded by the newspaper's subscribers.

Long-term sales of special items. The other speaker on the Franklin Inn's panel, the Inquirer reporter Mark Fazlollah, discussed his recent investigative series on Philadelphia's Board of Revision of Taxes as an example of the kind of story that requires a major news organization. Stories like that series could be sold separately to readers who don't subscribe to the paper. Electronic reprints have an indefinite lifespan, and they're almost cost-free. The tax series could probably be sold for $2 or $3, and it could attract local, national and international readers for years, or even decades.

Think of what an e-paper could have done with the classic muckraking magazine and newspaper articles of the late 19th Century— Ida Tarbell's "History of the Standard Oil Company," say, or Lincoln Steffens's "The Shame of the Cities," which are still read today. An enterprising newspaper could build up a small library of lucrative pieces.

Advertising supplements. Print papers already include advertising supplements devoted to special events like restaurant week. There's no reason why supplements can't be included in an electronic edition.

Advertising sections. Subscribers won't tolerate ads that clutter up a small display area, but they might be willing to browse sections that target special interests or contain news about local sales. Much of that information is available on the web, but it's scattered across different sites. There are advantages in having it in one place, on your personal reader.

Push the technology. Electronic paper will get larger; it's already foldable. Next January a company called Plastic Logic will unveil a reader the size of a Time magazine page. Newspaper publishers could join forces with the technology companies and develop a jumbo foldable display. Folded, the reader fits in your pocket. Unfolded, it's the size of a newspaper page, with advertising on the same page as the text. Add extra pages as the technology advances, and your electronic marvel begins to look and feel like…. a newspaper!

I've just proposed five ways an electronic newspaper could be turned into a profitable enterprise. And if I can think of five, Rupert Murdoch can think of 50. And if he can't, he can hire people who will.♦


To read Tom Purdom's previous essay, "Fear of Kindle," click here.
To read a response, click here.