Steve Jobs Will Save Print Media | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs Will Save Print Media

wired.com

5 pointsFlemlord10 comments

I'm not willing to bet the house against Steve Jobs but unfortunately, just like this article and just like today's world, no one has announced a plan or much less hinted at an idea of how to save the print media world. However, I think there is an important distinction here - one between the actual art of print dying (the physical paper) and the other of monetizing the digital aspect of it. The latter is so challenging because the online distribution model is so vastly inexpensive to produce that charging for it goes against everything free out there - which is the majority of the market.

Now, if a tool such as the tablet is such a cool way to read the paper in the morning - then maybe, just maybe, apple can work with publishers on some fee based solution. I think that this article leads us back to the underlying point that technology can and has saved some industries from dying and now, how can tech save print media from running out of ink.

The reason that no one has hinted at "an idea of how to save print media" is that there is no cure for print media as we have had it in the recent past. Their business model has been in decline for several decades, and they're not interested in changing. If you graph subscription/readership, you'll notice that somewhere between 2015 and 2020 the last newspaper in America will close. The industry is dead. It is just a matter of time before the corpse finally stops twitching.

What's killing publishers is not a content monetizing problem, it's a basic business-model problem: publishers have been making too much money on print-ad sales and like everything else the internet has made advertising cheaper.

Publishers don't just need to perfect a micro-payment solution for content, they need to change the way they create that content to make their entire business cheaper to operate.

Sounds like an opportunity for an outsider to step in and craft a more efficient model. Is it just that the industry is stuck in its own trap?

Unless you're going to pay journalists less or hire fewer of them, journalism isn't going to get any cheaper. It's a revenue problem, not an expenses one.

I want the best journalism possible, and I'm willing to pay for it not just so I can read it, but so others can be informed and our democracy will actually have a chance of working. Producing journalism as cheaply as possible won't result in the kind of democracy I want to live in. The sacrifices that have been made have already led in that direction.

> pay journalists less or hire fewer of them

That has been the practice of media companies for more than two decades. Mergers and aquisitions have reduced the number of print media owners to a tiny handful. The problem is more that those businesses are used to 20% profit margins, and with over-inflated prices paid during the acquisitions, there is far less incentive to pay market rates for journalists, or even to keep them employed.

While you might be willing to pay for the best journalism, the people hiring the journalists sure aren't. Furthermore, the line between editorial content and actual reporting has become so blurry that the smart thing to do is presume that the entire newspaper is editorial.

"While you might be willing to pay for the best journalism, the people hiring the journalists sure aren't."

I agree. That's why I think the best option is for people like me to hire our own journalists by funding non-profit journalism. Then again, I'm biased.

http://www.texastribune.org

Have you ever worked in a newspaper? It's like working in government (I know, I've worked in both).

The problem with newspapers is bureaucratic waste . . . and the inability to adapt quickly. I think journalists should be paid more, but that the bureaucratic structure that surrounds them should be eliminated.

I'm working in my second news organization right now, though this is my first real exposure to the editorial side of things. We're not really a normal news organization, though. No bureaucracy, and adapting quickly is pretty much an every day thing. It's early times, but it seems like a promising model for journalism to me.

http://www.texastribune.org

He'll save print by making it digital?

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