15 Comments Add your own

• 1. Jake  |  May 16th, 2007 at 2:25 am

  Did you guys cry when you read the article? Seriously man…Give it 5 years. His slim margins will be gone and he’ll be forced to rethink the generation that has already ignored him.

• 2. Jeremiah  |  May 16th, 2007 at 6:58 am

  He laments the idea of “free news”, yet fails to acknowledge it was “free” data that newspapers have been publishing for decades: stocks tickers, sports scores, and weather forecasts. All of these are available online now, and arguably via better services than most newspapers will provide these days (think trending, aggregation, etc.)

  I liked his comment about how his newspaper has added video production capacity….hey, just like (slaps forehead) TV!!!!

  I was encouraged that he’s deeply concerned about the quality of newsgathering given the erosion of much of the financial support required to produce good news. I was disappointed, however, that he didn’t really offer anything creative other than a lament.

• 3. !  |  May 16th, 2007 at 7:17 am

  i happen to like the guy’s honesty.

  i don’t agree with his stance, but anyone who dares speak like this opens themselves up to all sorts of criticism.

  i guess that’s what opinion pages are for.

  the problem he faces is not in getting people to buy day old news for that is destine to fail over time. he faces a huge OPPORTUNITY (if he cares to embrace it); how to change his outdated business model.

  did you know there are still a few who make buggywhips? unfortunately most have to spell out the fact that they will not make them for sadists.

• 4. Matt  |  May 16th, 2007 at 7:18 am

  While the numbers documented in this editorial support his decision to force people in Little Rock to pay for content either through a paid subscription or a purchase of a single copy, I realize that this publisher doesn’t get how “free content” could support his news staff. And, the trend towards the use of Internet news sources has grown so much that eventually reading a newspaper is something that will become obsolete. I still read my hometown paper when I am at home and can get it from my wife or buy a second copy. Yet, my children are now using the Internet to get their news.

• 5. Cory  |  May 16th, 2007 at 7:53 am

  I wish my newspapers in Seattle would start charging for their news online. My TV site would double in traffic and ad revenue overnight.

  He seems to think that newspapers are the only institutions that cover news on the web.

• 6. Rob  |  May 16th, 2007 at 8:08 am

  Online news isn’t his problem. Oil and trees are. The cost of newsprint continues to climb as does the cost of fuel to transport the raw materials and finished product to and from the press. Add to that increased publishing costs associated with paying a staff - unless you outsource to India - and the fact is he has to find an alternate source of revenue and that source has to be embracing the web, not holding it at arms length like he is.

• 7. !  |  May 16th, 2007 at 8:37 am

  ahh, the old paper, printing and postage theory.

  the only issue i have there is that as we move toward a paperless world !’s mailbox is getting stuffed with more paper than EVER!!!

  hopefully that’s a sign of death.

• 8. Anony Mouse  |  May 16th, 2007 at 8:50 am

  Here’s the funny part in all this: Hussman built the Arkansas Democrat into a powerhouse and ran off his competition, the Gannett-owned Arkansas Gazette, by offering “free” classifieds. That undercut the Gazette’s business model and Gannett bailed out by selling the Gazette to Hussman. Knowing that makes Hussman’s arguments all the more hypocritical.

• 9. discreet_chaos  |  May 16th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

  If you click my name, you’ll see that I’m operating two sites which aggregate headlines/links from practically every newspaper and television station in North America.

  Out of the hundreds of newspapers which I monitor, there are some which charge a subscription fee. When a headline comes-up from one of these subscription sites, I’ll generally only link it, if it is unique and if it is information not available from another source. After all, I subscribe to the Albuquerque Journal (which’ll give you a daypass for watching a commercial) because I live in New Mexico. I don’t live in Arkansas, so I’m not going to pay for a subscription to the Democrat and I’m mostly going to link to their site for the free articles. Plus, as Mr Hussman noted, a lot of his info is reprinted on the wires, the local television or on one of the other area papers.

  And in this case, though I’m relatively new to the Little Rock market, but the Arkansas TV stations, the paper out of Springdale and those in southern Missouri appear to be pretty good at taking-up the slack. Plus, I know that if I wait a few hours and if the article’s content is exceptional, it’ll be picked-up by one of the Utah papers or by somebody else, who are better at utlizing the web.

• 10. warren reid  |  May 16th, 2007 at 7:31 pm

  This man is dooming us all — those of us in newspapers anyway. (As Cory points out it is heavenly for TV sites…)

  He has no idea what kind of impact this AWFUL, unsupported (beyond his pathetic market) OPINION is having. Already dozens of publishers just LOOKING and HOPING for someone to say what he is saying are salivating — and circulating this column to corporate muckety-mucks trying to get things changed. (I’m not kidding)

  The thing this man has NO IDEA about is that dozens of papers (including several Tribune ones) have tried paid models — and they have failed. And, they did it right! With paid extras, incredible promotion and unbelievable content.

  Also, everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — forgets that the Knight Ridder model in 1996-1998 was for PAID websites. They tried it and abandoned it. (Talk about a joke and completely mismanaged digital arm of a company — it still speaks volumes that McClatchy kept practically no one and nothing from KRD…) Still, despite their ineptitude, they tried it and it DID NOT WORK!!!

  This, however, is the telling aspect of how dumb this man is — yet sadly other publishers who barely understand the web think this is groundbreaking:

  “We have hired a videographer to complement our text coverage in the newspaper. We have added photo galleries to increase the number of photographs beyond what we can publish. We offer an electronic edition where you can search the entire edition by keywords, something you can’t do in the print edition. And we offer breaking news email alerts, something else you can’t do in print. In other words, we are offering value on our Web site that complements, rather than cannibalizes, our print edition.”

  Photo galleries, searchable PDFs? Video? UNBELIEVABLE!!! Nearly everything in that paragraph is 7 years old. Everything!

  This man is no rebel — he is simply ruining everything people who have seriously been in this business for the last 10 years have worked on.

  But, like most “smart people” he comes late to the party, says things that are embarassingly simple (and oversimplified) and says it in a reputable venue and is taken at his word. How sad.

• 11. warren reid  |  May 16th, 2007 at 7:44 pm

  Also, one little amazing fact that completely shoots holes in his argument:

  No one sits around reading the Saturday or especially Sunday paper or Saturday or Sunday news for free on the Internet. (Name the last time you did that — and anyone here who says they did is not exactly a sampling of typical audience….)

  So, why is weekend circulation falling too — at the same rate (in some cases higher) than daily?

  Things that make you go “Hmmmm….”

• 12. Hussman  |  May 17th, 2007 at 6:32 am

  No relation.

• 13. David Johnson  |  May 17th, 2007 at 8:27 am

  rob — on the surface, it is a pretty easy leap to see that costs in gas and newsprint are rising, but that’s not what is really driving the expense line into the high slope. gas and paper are going up with a fairly predictable percentage, and decreased demand in both are controlling those factors. the big cost is people. and it isn’t in compensation, since most companies are keeping raises pretty consistently low. the cost of benefits have skyrocketed in the past 8 years.

  really, we spend a lot time bashing or praising newspapers online, but i seriously think that newspaper journalists give the best bang for the buck in terms of content production. most print journalists, who are paid lower than magazine or broadcasters on average, are accustomed to cranking out at least a story a day - sometimes two or three — while also working on enterprise projects. now we’re hitting them with online addons like video, audio, blogging, etc.

  when you compare newspaper freelance costs to the pay-per-word magazine rates, or look at the time ratios of raw to finished product production for news or even -gasp- documentary video and film, newspaper-trained reporters turning copy is the best content buy, hands down, no contest, end of story. you will get more words and more pages per time spent reporting and producing around which you will get more ad spots and, with search engines focused on text, you will get more views.

  while newspapers are experimenting with video, it is not going unnoticed that the same four people it takes to produce ten minutes of finished video could deliver ten times the weight of raw information in text and photographs. that’s why the video that is being produced is generally more raw — five minutes of plain wildfire footage is more desirable than having an anchor at a desk ask a reporter standing near a fire truck a bunch of questions on a split screen.

  this is what we’re talking about. you can’t do broadcast as usual online and stand out or be cost-effective in terms of viewser time spent or your own production time.

• 14. Will  |  May 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

  Indeed, Hussman seems oblivious to the fact that poeple are using sources other than newspapers to get information about issues and institutions that interest them. I had to chuckle about his comment that there will be “less reporting” of “state houses, city halls, school boards, business and sports.” I’m a local government communicator, and our surveys tell us our monthly utility bill newsletter is a better source of information about the local government than the metro daily and local bi-weekly that cover us. (The local bi-weekly reporter has been known to take my press releases and simply put his byline on them. Sigh.) More and more, local governments are simply bypassing the media and creating their own content — online, via cable TV, newsletters and even — though it may be a dying medium — newspaper advertising. As a former journalist, now working the other side of the fence, it is clear to me that what journalism needs most is a big dose of humility. Guys, you’re just not that important anymore. Create relevant content, quit thinking you’re the smartest guys in the room and take advantage of the opportunities around you to reach new audiences.

• 15. Tim  |  May 17th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  One more in the pantheon of people who believe they’re in a “paper” business, a “radio” business, a “TV” business, or a “video” business.

  The successful ones are in the “news” business. It doesn’t matter what media, or how may formats, that the news is delivered in. If your organization delivers reliably accurate news in a timely manner, I’ll read it and whatever ads are relevant to me. To quote some guy with big ears “it’s just that simple!”

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