An Example of Social Media Gone Wrong – Print Media’s Suicide

Last week, one of Canada’s large national newspapers announced that it will start charging readers for it’s online editions.

 

The Globe and Mail said it will allow readers to view a as-yet-undetermined amount of stories online, and then afterwards force them to subscribe to the paper to continue reading.

They are taking a page from the American New York Times, which has been charging online readers for their stories.

Wait a sec . . . wasn’t print declared dead long ago?

A recent study on the best and worst 200 jobs to have cited ‘newspaper reporter’ as one of the top 10 worst jobs to have, because of declining readers, and consequently a lack of jobs. The article mentions how most people get their news from the Internet and then television or radio, often not having time to read a full newspaper.

Many newspapers across the globe have simply closed their doors, sending their reporters scattering looking for work, because of this decline in readership, due in large part to other free sources of instant news online.

So what were the editors at The Globe and Mail thinking when they thought they could build a revenue stream off the backs of their already declining readership?

Look to the other end of the digital spectrum to see The Huffington Post, the world’s largest and most respected completely online – and FREE – newspaper. This online source for news and information has quickly become an enormous success for founding publisher Arianna Huffington. Yet she’s giving away her product free.

Will Canada’s Globe and Mail, one of the oldest papers in Canada, which was the last true broadsheet paper until newsprint costs cut column inches, survive by charging for what others give away for nilche?

Granted, newspapers, magazines and other subscription-based services will always have their dedicated customer niches, which, if they have the money to burn, will.

However, as the global economy continues to fail, jobs continue to decrease, and the cost of living continues to rise, the disposable income those niche customers have to burn disappears.

Meaning no matter how much someone enjoys reading a particular column, section or day in a pay-based publication, if the same sort of content is available elsewhere for free, the free publication will always win.

When I was a print reporter years ago, Canada only had one national paper, which was The Globe and Mail. I’d read it, along with the other main dailies, watch the three major network’s national newscasts, and listen to the local radio station’s news on the hour.

Times have really changed.

There are two national papers in Canada – three if you consider the Toronto Star national because of its size and distribution. The big three Canadian networks now drown in a sea of digital cable and satellite channels available from around the world, including the now popular 24-hour news network channels.

And the Internet also didn’t exist during the era when newspapers were king.

Paying for subscriptions to the digital editions of a dying media sounds like a nail in the coffin for that dying media.

Surprisingly, that nail is being hammered in directly by those who manage that dying media – which makes me wonder – is the death of the print newspaper suicide?