Response to Pay-on-Performance Discussion: Newspapers
LinkedIn’s Pay-on-Performance group posed a discussion topic:
Detroit newspapers – indicative of the rest of the country?
Both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News are expected to announce, according to a Wall Street Journal article, they will stop home delivery of their print editions on four days of the week. Only Thursday Friday and Sunday editions will be delivered.
Although the recession’s effect on the auto industry makes the economic impact more severe in Michigan than nationwide, does this move reflect a sweeping change across America’s newspaper industry?
This was announced in Detroit a few weeks ago; newspapers have been trickling money for the past 10 years. As Craig’s List destroyed the classified ads, the newspaper industry’s unwillingness to embrace Interactive technology until other sites claimed the news/information market built the foundation Newspapers are crumbling under.
Note: the entire media industry is also faltering at a record pace; local and network television newsrooms have become career ghost towns.
Note: The Seattle Post-Intelligence, a newspaper whose existence can be traced back to the Civil War, is looking for a buyer…or could face extinction.
Americans are not stopping their search for information; Americans have more choices and more venues. The more ‘established’ industries are dying because of an inability to adapt to new trends and technologies used by the American (and global) consumer.
Dinosaurs once ruled the earth; scientists believe they died a complete and relatively quick death. If you want to learn more, chances are you aren’t picking up a book or a newspaper, and the TV won’t get turned on either.
A side note:
In full disclosure, the Pay-on-Performance group moderator and I share parents and are the first ones the other will turn to if we need a kidney.
