The End of Newspapers -- This Soon?
I assume you all heard about the threat our local paper, The New York Times, made this week — to shut down the Boston Globe. Who knows if it was merely a negotiating posture with the unions, but just the mention of that kind of threat damages the Times‘ own reputation, so one has to believe they are seriously on the ropes.
When I wrote about the demise of newspapers a few weeks ago, I ended by saying that it was my guess that the folks that run newspapers don’t get it, and they will watch as their enterprises sink into the sea.
Well, last night I read something on Huffington Post which I had to share, written by Jeff Jarvis (whose new book What Would Google Do I ordered from Amazon.com just last night). Jeff’s take on the newspaper industry is far harsher than mine, and I think it’s a must read.
It’s titled “To Newspaper Moguls: You Blew It” and he makes the indictment with a dagger.
I know folks in the arts community in Boston are scrambling to understand the potential of their city without a major newspaper to review their shows and a place to put their ads.
It may just be that the biggest economic crisis the arts are going to face in the next year is not financial at all — it’s editorial.
So, as I’ve said for years at my seminars (now sort of a mantra to arts marketers), when you think about marketing online you should make yourself into the publisher. With e-mail and Web sites, and now RSS, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, *you* are the publisher — and in some cases this may be necessary sooner than you think.
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this is coming. the newspaper will be gone before long. there are several papers in north carolina that have closed.