"In Six Months, They'll All Be Idiots, Too"
An old pro recently asked, “Is there anything newspapers can do to turn it around at this point?, that’s what my friends are asking me.” My reply, well, today, no, if you mean turning the business back up, on a dime. There’s a bright future out there, earned by doing a number of new (and old) things right, but nothing’s going to turn the line on the chart brightly upward in the short term.
That’s sobering. It is though the reality when the 50-year flood of lowered revenues sweeps over the industry. You can’t call it a tsunami — we’ve had years of warnings. Just no one could say when the waters would seem overwhelming.
We can see all the recent news of the industry through that vapory shimmer.
Sam Zell selling Newsday? No surprise.
Brian Tierney and Chris Harte talking ( in an excellent David Carr NYT piece ) about how it’s far worse than they ever believed it would be, raising concerns of meeting debt obligations. Some saw it coming.
The New York Times adding two chairs to its august table for some hedgies. Well, in these times.
What is interesting is an unprecedented entering of the newspaper trade, by, horror, outsiders.
Harte certainly has strong newspapering family roots, but entered from the venture side. Zell’s a self-described bottom-feeder, and Tierney’s a symbol of old-fashioned, civic-oriented newspaper mogul, a throwback, who may be out of sync with his times.
Then, there’s Dean Singleton, seemingly shaking up his exec suite weekly. Now, the old Knight Ridder guys are seeing their fortunes wane, while the new guys come in from Comcast and Time Inc. Yes, new blood, which in the words of MediaNews #2 (I think) Jody Lodovic, “… will enable us to make decisions quicker and to be more focused.”
Well, maybe. Comcast, seeing threat to its core cable business has gone all Triple Play. Internet, phone service + cable, while our old newspaper industry still has been trying to hit singles, getting the stance adjusted, but not rapidly re-thinking the business model and looking for vast new cash flow and profits (other than Don Graham with Kaplan) outside of the traditional comfort areas.
Yes, outside viewpoints are welcome — what elephants in the room will the Harbinger/Firebrand guys point to when they sit on the first board meeting? — but the real question is making a trip to ride out what will be — at minimum — three to five hellacious years and still keep the journalism intact.
As another friend, another battle-scarred pro, recently summed it up. “They all think they know THE answer, but there is no single answer. In six months, they’ll all be idiots, too.”