On the Brink: Newspaper Extinction

economist.com

3 points·breily··5 comments

This is a great example. The media industry is very broken right now, and unless the innovate, these dire predictions will come true. More than anything, they need to fix the content, which is still king.

This is exactly why we started NewsCred. Who knows if it will work or not, but we're going to give it a go.

The problem is that they all decided to compete with CNN, so now they are all trying to get the news out as soon as possible. While there is some market for that I also believe that there is a market for well researched, interesting and unique content.

I like papers, and used to work for one, but smearing ink on pieces of paper seems like a strange way to deliver information in the electronic age.

Maybe import some cheaper labor to replace journalists and cut costs? [ <---serious suggestion ]

Or take the route The Economist takes and instead of catering to the mass market at mass market prices, go upscale and charge a subscription fee. I guess not many players could do this however, as the upscale market is obviously going to be smaller... but I willingly pay $100+ a year to get it, since it's quite a bit better than any other newspaper out there.

I guess it's like the ad-supported website model vs. the pay website model. Neither way is necessarily better, but profitability doesn't always depend on more readers, although it helps.

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