On the passing of an icon

Feb 11

Written by: Bruce Chapman
Monday, February 11, 2008 

The Bulletin was a long lasting news and editorial magazine. It was published for 127 years before the owner APN decided enough was enough and pulled the weekly magazine.

A lot of journalists have done much hand wringing and column writing asking what was the cause. Some have said the internet, some have blamed other factors. But it's quite simple : it's not just the internet, it's the changing attitudes towards how people get their information.

On the one hand, high editorial quality still counts for something when people want to get news, but on the other they aren't going to wait a week for it. When breaking news happens today, people don't want to wait until the 6 o'clock TV news for it, they want it right now.

However, many newspapers are clinging to the notion that people still want a grubby pile of paper to get their news, and that the passing of long-lived publications like The Bulletin are not a sign of things to come for larger news magazines and papers. In my opinion they are in for a rough time.

I'm an avid consumer of the news. I gave up on the likes of Newscorp, APN and others a long time ago. I don't even read the online-version of their news much. Instead I rely on services like Google News, and community-driven news aggregations like Digg.com and reddit.com. No need for editors, just tailor your news delivery to what you like. As a result I never have to expose myself to frivolous celebrity news or other trash I'm not interested in. I have an old laptop sitting on my kitchen table for this purpose and no other. Anyone can buy a similar 2nd hand laptop for this purpose for less than a 6 month subscription to a newspaper.

I'm probably an early adopter on this front, but does anyone really think that newspaper circulation is going to grow? If I'm not reading those newspapers, how many of my peers have also given up on them. And how long before advertisers work out that the obscene prices of news print advertising can't compete with directly-targeted online ads in which you only pay for results?

The reason I wrote this is to get readers thinking : if something as long established, profitable and deeply ingrained as the news industry can be turned on it's head in as little as 5 or 6 years, what can happen to your industry? How are the buyers of your services going to be searching for their information, and where are you spending your advertising dollars for best effect? The kids being born today will look upon newspapers in the same quaint way I talk about telegrams.

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Bruce Chapman
Hi, I'm Bruce Chapman, and this is my blog. You'll find lots of information here - my thoughts about business and the internet, technical information, things I'm working on and the odd strange post or two.

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