It’s a difficult time to be in the daily newspaper business, as last week’s decision by Journal Register Co. to file again for bankruptcy protection amply demonstrates.
Despite all the reassuring words spoken by industry wunderkind and Journal Register CEO John Paton about the joys of thinking digital first, the unalterable fact is the ends don’t meet.
Advertisers who were paying dollars for print ads are paying dimes for online ads. And when revenues no longer cover expenses, something has to give. Usually, that’s payroll. And that leads to a diminished product which makes attracting readers and advertisers even harder. It’s a spiral that seldom comes to a happy ending.
Today, the parent company of the New Haven Register, the Torrington Register Citizen, the Middletown Press and a host of smaller publications here in Connecticut is the one making news. In the recent past — and likely in the not too distant future — it’s the Hartford Courant.
The good news is that hedge funds see a value proposition and are bidding for newspaper properties. They see a way to turn a profit. The bad news is that hedge funds are, by design, short-term owners who will adjust the business model, sometimes rudely, and flip the property.
We’ve come a long way from the days when a local family owned and operated the newspaper. The family was part of the community and felt responsible for — and to — that community. Reading the newspaper provided a baseline shared experience. Those days have gone the way of the buggy whip, slain by a media landscape of a million niches.
The 21st-century business model for news is still a work in progress. We here at the Hartford Business Journal don’t have all the answers, but we’re confident our readers and advertisers want the unique services we’re providing.
That value proposition may not be as clear for many urban daily newspapers. Some, like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are trying online only service. Some, like the Detroit News and New Orleans Times-Picayune are trying printing fewer days, down to three in New Orleans.
News is a curious beast. It breaks out suddenly and demands immediate coverage. And that coverage is labor intensive. The digital world is well geared to handle the immediacy. The question is whether the business model allows for any journalists to be on duty when news happens.
So-called legacy media has taken quite a beating from new media of late. But the fact remains that without original reporting, aggregators will have nothing to aggregate. And original reporting takes resources.
A world without many independent news sources is a scary thing to ponder. Yet it seems to be moving inextricably closer with each new bankruptcy. We’ll all be poorer if that day arrives.
Rail delusions
There can be no argument that commuter rail service is vital to Connecticut’s economy. The 38 million annually who choose riding Metro-North’s New Haven line over driving into New York City are testimony to rail’s appeal here.
But there’s also no argument that Metro-North is an economic basket case, losing $468 million last year. The rails need work; so do the cars and the service and the schedules and….
Now along comes the Federal Railroad Administration, eager to vet grand plans for high-speed rail through Connecticut. Image a 90-minute ride from New York to Boston, all for ‘just’ $100 billion. There’s even one idea to build a rail tunnel under Long Island Sound.
Dreamers are valuable. Without them, we’d be stuck in neutral forever. But there are better uses for time and money than chasing these particular rail dreams.
Walk before you run. Fix the system that we know has merit. Then we can talk about what might be next.
