Newspapers are a vital cog in the working gears of democracy

EVER since I started reporting and writing for newspapers 20 years ago I’ve been listening to predictions of their imminent demise. I’ve never really taken these claims too seriously, believing the desire to consume news, information and entertainment in a written and printed form — rather than merely by broadcast media — would remain strong.

Now though, for the first time, I’m getting a little worried about the future of an industry I love working in and which I believe is essential to a properly functioning democratic society.

Previously, the predictions of demise came mainly from people working outside the industry. Worryingly now though, many of those among the harbingers of doom are in newspaper companies.

Last week, Carlos Slim, a Mexican described as the richest man in the world, was interviewed by the New Yorker magazine about his investment in one of the world’s most famous newspapers The New York Times. “We think it’s the best newspaper. The best brand... we believe in media content. We think the paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important... Our business is to be the carriers. If I had wanted to buy a newspaper, I would have done that 50 years ago... I think content and information are important for the new civilisation.”

Slim is far from being alone in believing that physical newspapers will disappear. An Irishman called David Montgomery, who is chief executive of a pan-continental European publisher called Mecom, recently described the newspaper industry as “bankrupt, unviable, finished”.

All around the western world, newspaper companies are going digital, offering their products online. Indeed, you may be reading this online rather than on a printed page. In theory this is good for the consumer and could be good for the producer.

As advertising revenue has fallen because of the recession this suggests that going digital could provide wonderful cost savings for the publisher. No printing and distribution would save a fortune and the product, when ready, could go to the consumer immediately, ending a disadvantage newspapers have suffered compared to the immediacy of the broadcast media.

If only it was that easy. Unfortunately, the revenue available to publishers from putting content on the internet is not sufficient to cover even the lower costs of producing it. Advertising is key to covering costs and providing a profit but advertisers have not embraced the net as anticipated or have found different ways to do so. Readers don’t seem to want to pay to access newspaper material, apparently believing they have paid for it because of the money they have given to their internet service providers. Unfortunately, that does not go back to the original provider, especially when outfits like Google parasitically use content provided by others as the platform to sell advertising.

The champion for the newspaper industry in this regard is a man who has been blamed often, and wrongly, for lowering its standards. Rupert Murdoch has conceded the traditional model of newspaper selling is “malfunctioning”, but his solution correctly goes against the conventional wisdom of the industry. He has decided to charge for online content later this year.

“People reading news for free on the web, that’s got to change,” he said recently.

It’s got to do so for the simple reason that you don’t get something for nothing. Getting news rather than press releases and detailed analysis and comment from trained journalists under the supervision of editors rather than top-of-the-head superficial and rushed comment from untrained writers costs money.

So if standards of journalism are to be maintained, then investment is required and that means end-users are going have to pay for it. The alternative is so-called citizen journalism which is great in theory but which has more flaws than merits because of the unprofessional approach often adopted by its users. If Google continues to take all of the ad revenue as the search engine the end result will be the elimination of diverse sources of news and, even if the broadcast and digital media prosper, a loss of the type of detailed written material that is so important. Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, now owned by Murdoch, and former editor of The Times in London is leading the charge against Google. “There is a collective consciousness among content creators that they are bearing the costs and that others are reaping some of the revenues,” he said recently. “Inevitably that profound contradiction will be a catalyst for action and the moment is nigh. There is no doubt certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.”

Murdoch is committed to newspapers but seems to have recognised that further migration to the web is inevitable. Gavin O’Reilly, chief executive of the financially deeply troubled Independent News & Media, also doubles up as president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), and has been a passionate defender of newspapers, seeking to contradict “misleading” reports that predict their imminent death. He recently said global newspaper circulation grew 1.3% in 2008 — with 1.9 billion people reading a paid-for daily newspaper every day — but had to admit the growth is taking place in developing markets while there is “a continued downward trend in the developed markets”. He claimed that predicting the death of newspapers “seems to have reached the level of a new sport” and complained that “this doom and gloom about our industry has largely gone unanswered is, to me, the most bizarre case of wilful self-mutilation ever in the annals of industry. And it continues apace, with commentators failing to look beyond their simple rhetoric and merely joining the chorus that the future is online, online, online, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This is a mistake. This oversimplifies a rather complex issue.”

HE boasted about massive global reach — 41% more people read a newspaper than go online and one-third of the world’s population opts for print — and claimed newspapers are doing no worse than other industries in the global downturn. “Is it just possible that the consumer is capable of multi-tasking; is capable of consuming a multitude of media and that it need not necessarily be just online?” O’Reilly asked.

WAN also commissioned a new report on the global newspaper industry by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) — “Outlook for Newspaper Publishing in a Digital Age” — which said that a plunge in advertising revenues and the migration of readers to free online editions has left the newspaper industry in “a state of turmoil”. The PWC report also contends that newspaper readership in Ireland is deep-rooted and that Irish readers are likely to “continue to place a significant value on the commentary and opinion provided by the well-established newspaper.”

Ireland’s relative lack of broadband penetration may be partly responsible for the lack of pick-up here but it is likely that the future of newspapers will depend on delivery via mobile devices, such as blackberries and wireless-enabled laptops and reading devices such as the Kindle or Sony Reader.

But something will have to happen to ensure technology providers don’t get all of whatever revenue is available if newspapers, as a source of information rather than a delivery method in itself, are to survive. The days of free news on the internet are going to have to end.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday,4.30pm to 7pm.