As the Rocky bows out, did technology fire the bullet?
The last issue of the venerable Rocky Mountain News was published on February 27. For me, the event was significant both professionally and personally. I spent seven years as Vice President of Technology for the Denver Newspaper Agency, the business entity that was established in 2001 to publish the Rocky and the Denver Post jointly.
Under economic pressures, the respective owners agreed to combine the operations of the newspapers, but keep each of the newsgathering departments intact and separate, thereby preserving two independent voices in the community. In short, the agency would provide the circulation, production, printing, advertising sales and other functions for both papers, but both would continue to be edited and distributed under their own titles.
It was a complex arrangement, but pooling their costs would allow both papers to avoid economic collapse, at least for the time being.
Unfortunately, there were more fundamental problems at work than could be solved simply by reducing expenses. Consolidating operations might buy some time for the papers, but unless the core issues were resolved, they would continue on course to disaster. The core issues are not unique to Denver, nor are they new.
All over the country, metropolitan newspapers have been steadily losing circulation over the last 30 years. As the demographics and interests of the nation’s population changed, newspapers struggled to remain relevant to readers. Worse, the dynamics of the advertising markets were changing and newspapers were having a difficult time responding to those changes.
In an already weakened state, the newspaper industry this year was walloped by a triple whammy. The general economy self-destructed, advertisers recoiled in record numbers and something called the World Wide Web was threatening to deliver a knock-out blow to printed publications. Some large newspapers and newspaper chains declared bankruptcy and others have been forced to cut deeply into labor and operational costs. In Denver, the DNA was simply unable to produce enough profit to keep both news operations in the black.
So, what went wrong?
Many will be quick to blame the Internet. Their mantra is familiar: “Nobody reads newspapers anymore; we get all the information we need online – for free.” This, of course, is a gross oversimplification. There are more factors contributing to the demise of newspapers than just the Internet. But as technologists, let’s take a look at the lessons to be learned from the digital challenge.
The truth is that the Internet is, and will continue to be, a powerful channel for the delivery of news and information. We in the publishing industry should have recognized that 20 years ago. And those of us who did should have pursued the technology far more aggressively. As the Web became more popular and more familiar, many publishers began to see the enormous potential of the new media, as well as the enormous threat it posed if not taken seriously. They began to explore how to tap into the digital highway. But frankly, efforts to cultivate the Web as a serious channel for information delivery were meager at best.
While the Googles and the Amazons and the Yahoos and the Facebooks were engaged in an expensive do-or-die battle for position on the Web, print publishers generally sat on the sidelines, unaware of the consequences of the failure to make a major investment to retain their leadership in the overall information marketplace.
Newspapers, in fact, were in a perfect position to be the dominant player in content delivery via cyberspace. They have a strong infrastructure in place to collect and prepare news and information. After all, they have been doing it for many years with staffs of journalists and editors, and they have mastered the processes and organizations to produce it – at least through ink on paper.But the entry price was admittedly high … and risky. It appeared that publishers were willing to put up some money to play, but not nearly enough to assure a dominant seat at the table. It turns out that not taking the risk may have been even more risky taking it. The penalty may be extinction.
I’ve spent all of my adult life in the publishing industry, as a journalist and as a technologist. Over a span of almost 40 years I have seen automation technologies boost industry earnings to record levels, and I have seen prevarication over technology drive the industry to near death.
The lessons?
1. Ignore technology at your own peril. Advancing technology is constant. Learn to work with it because no one has yet succeeded in holding it back.
2. He who hesitates is lost. Swift and resolute action leads to success; self-doubt is a prelude to disaster. Be decisive when faced with opportunity. Committing half way is no better than staying home altogether.
3. Understand the business you are in. Publishers are not in the business of printing newspapers. They are in the business of gathering and delivering information. In the information industry you can be as successful delivering it digitally as you can be printing it on paper … perhaps more so. n