A college classmate, Peter, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, asked me what “my take” was on the changes in the media world, referring to the de facto demise of this home town Ann Arbor News.
If you’ve been on vacation in Bali and didn’t want to pay the $15 a day resort Internet fee, the shut down of the 45,000 circulation News will make this the first city to lose its newspaper. The plan, according to owner Advance Publications, is to completely shut down the operation, lay off all empoylees, then start fresh with two new companies that will need far fewer staff. One, a Web venture called AnnArbor.com, will have some original reporting but rely substantially on reader input and community forums. A second company is described as a printing company that will publish a twice weekly newspaper fo some sort. Advance is also cutting back its daily newspapers in Flint, Saginaw, and Bay City to a thrice weekly schedule.
Types of organizations eligible for non-profit status under IRS 501(c)
My take, I wrote Peter, is that I suspect new players will see it as an opportunity to pick up the slack. They will enter with a different expense base. Maybe no single one will totally replace today's version of the newspaper, but in aggregate they will cover whatever territory for which there is a demand, e.g., an entertainment paper-- probably ad supported. More local stuff online. More stuff you can view on iPhone-like devices or Kindle-like. We’re in a period of fits and starts, but if there is a market there will be big guys or entrepreneurs who will fill the gaps. At the premium end there is the example of the for-profit (they hope) GlobalPost.com. The low end may be the for-profit (they hope) citizen journalist new AnnArbor.com.
But what about the not-for-profit model, a proposal popularized by an op-ed piece in The New York Times last month? An academic study being prepared for publication in the Journal of Media Economics this summer (I’ll post more details in July) looks at the fortunes of nonprofits in the magazine business. It notes that “nonprofit” can take many forms, both legally and as operational models. Many not for profits rely heavily on advertising revenue, just as their for-profit cousins. The study observes that they can be just as susceptible to economic downturns as for profit publications.
Indeed, at a small conference I attended earlier this month, I pointedly asked Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute whether the general downward pressures facing the newspaper industry had affected the St. Petersburg Times. That paper is something of the poster child for the non-profit model. The paper is controlled by a foundation set up by the late Nelson Poynter. If the paper has a surplus – the nonprofit term for profit—it declares a dividend. This is turn is the primary source of support for the many good program of the Poynter Institute. Edmunds had to admit that the Times is indeed taking a hit from the same forces felt by all newspapers. It has made staff cuts in its newsroom to help keep up profit. Even so, dividends are down. The Poynter Institute has a comfortable cash reserve for now. But the larger point is that the Times as well as the Institute are not immune to the forces and trends in the industry or the economy.
Philanthropic organizations—even the wealthiest—cannot defy gravity. Harvard, the richest of universities, is having to make major cutback because its endowment—line the financial markets—shrunk 22% ($8 billion) between July and October 2008 alone.
So let’s suppose that a newspaper does indeed have a billion dollar endowment behind it. To generate income it must invest that money somewhere. The more aggressively it’s invested, the more money for the newsroom. If invested in Treasury notes, the endowment is safer—but it may be short changing its mission—essentially leaving money on the table that could be used for journalism. So it takes a moderate course of investment. And suppose that lets the endowment generate a 5% return devoted to newspaper operations. That would be $50 million initially, a nice subsidy to keep up salaries, news bureaus, staffing. But what happens, as it has this past year, if the invested funds lose 20% of their value—well under the markets overall financial loses in the past year, thanks to our hypothetical endowment's conservative portfolio.
Now, with an $800 million portfolio, if it still drew 5%, it could only add $40 million to its income. What’s a publisher to do? Just as advertising and circulation revenue are falling, so is the endowment income that could otherwise prop up its finances. True, it may be better off than its fully for- profit brethren. But it will inevitably need to make cuts: in personnel, in travel, in salaries—the same types of cuts we hear about weekly.
So not-for-profit is not the solution, endowments are not the solution. What is?
As I wrote to Peter, there is not a solution. We have left behind an either/or world for one of many options. There is opportunity for non-profits, such as the well established Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting or the new Pro Publica. The entrepreneurial for-profit sector is represented by a new model with GlobalPost. The Detroit newspapers are leading the way (or were pushed) for daily newspapers in hybrid online and print. Advance Publications is trying out another for profit model in Ann Arbor.
The result will be an evolving stew of print, online, mobile, video and audio news sources—international, national, local and hyperlocal. For profit and not for profit. From existing well known media companies, from nonmedia players, from entrepreneurial start-ups. Those that will be successful and those that will prove unsuccessful.
When I teach about marketing, the most important word I emphasize is the word “some.” I tell them not to think in terms of “People want more news” or “People are willing (or unwilling) to pay for…” Market segmentation is about “some." “Some people” want. “Some people” will pay. Some. The digital technologies here and still emerging make it far more efficient to provide news, entertainment, whatever, to each of us in more forms than at any time in history.
COMMENTS
But will there be enough people on the ground who will actually gather and report the news? Or will the new media simply expand the current contentless talking heads approach to news? Will there be enough staff to track local politics and hold officials accountable? Will wrongdoing be exposed?
If online news services can replace the essential local news that papers like the Ann Arbor News have provided, then the transition may well result in the positives that Ben mentions. As someone who still likes the feel of the newspaper, I'm skeptical. But my children, no doubt, will not mourn the demise of any newspaper. They simply don't have the investment in it that I do.
COMMENTS
1. Peter Jacobson on March 29, 2009 10:47 PM writes...
I largely agree with Ben's analysis. What's exciting is the way that new media approaches and strategies can emerge to replace old ways of transmitting news and content.But will there be enough people on the ground who will actually gather and report the news? Or will the new media simply expand the current contentless talking heads approach to news? Will there be enough staff to track local politics and hold officials accountable? Will wrongdoing be exposed?
If online news services can replace the essential local news that papers like the Ann Arbor News have provided, then the transition may well result in the positives that Ben mentions. As someone who still likes the feel of the newspaper, I'm skeptical. But my children, no doubt, will not mourn the demise of any newspaper. They simply don't have the investment in it that I do.
