Please answer this question…

Internet = Hitler?

Rather than deal with the reality of the situation newspapers find themselves in, he wants to argue that it is morally wrong. That may be true, but it doesn’t matter.

And his acceptance of liberal tropes, the divide between the haves and have nots and the danger of “greed” goes to the other problem the MSM have in attracting an audience — trust. If you were a politician, would you trust this guy to be objective? If you were a reader and saw his byline, would you trust that he’d given both sides a fair shake?

“You must have it or you cannot be an informed member of society. ” You must live in a major metropolis where most people actually have BlackBerrys, too. (I’ve never seen one.) Newspapers used to penetrate society in order to inform. Kids delivered papers as their first job, and got the habit early. As you’ve pointed out, you have to actively seek out news now, pay for an IP out of your shrinking income after you’ve paid for gas and heat and food. Maybe you only know rich people on your yacht. Most people just watch TV instead: American Idol.

Library hours have been cut drastically (did you notice?) and their computers have long lines to get on. And I don’t see people passing that lone home computer around so the whole family can get a crack at their favorite section of the news site on their dialup.

Many more people always read papers than ever subscribed to them, and since advertisers wanted all the eyeballs they could get, newspapers researched and bragged about how many people read every copy sold, multiplying their reach. At some papers’ sites, every reader has to register with a valid email address.

“Empowered consumers” is marketing mush. First, you “consume” food and beverages; you use, access, or jack into the net. And empowerment only comes high up on the learning curve. Yeah, we’re online, we do email and send photos to our relatives, and the kids like games and myspace. We send each other jokes. At most news sites, readers hit a couple of top stories and leave, no matter how much is there.

People access the net at work. That’s why traffic drops so much on weekends. And why most people only frequent six sites. How much time can they get away with not working, after all?

If news organizations actively supported computer literacy in what’s left of their newsholes, pushed for local wifi, distributed recycled computers and worked on real penetration, they could herd their local readers to their online sites with that promise of “free” and own the future. But if people still don’t find the obits when they get there, because they now cost hundreds of dollars instead of being news stories, they still won’t get the information the community most needs: whose wake you have to show up at.

More people have gotten the internet at a faster rate than any other technology, including telephones or TV. And internet penetration continues to grow.

Also, all public libraries have internet access. So does virtually every public school in the nation. Anyone can get it for free. And major cities are moving to provide wi-fi access for all citizens for free, from San Francisco to Philadelphia.

Wake up. It isn’t 1995 anymore. In 2006, the internet is like the telephone. You must have it or you cannot be an informed member of society. The main group of people who do not have access are retirees who choose not to learn how to use it. As they die off in the next decade or two, internet penetration will exceed 95 percent, just like TV penetration.

Finally, the small number of people who don’t have internet access, won’t ever get it, and don’t go to public libraries aren’t people who were subscribing to newspapers anyway. They were already out of the loop, even before the internet.

Like it or not, the internet has forever changed the newspaper business and has empowered consumers. Getting mad about it, or claiming it is all unfair because it is creating some kind of new feudal system is not only inaccurate, it makes you the 2006 equivalent of the guy in 1920 who said “who needs these newfangled telephone things anyway? I don’t trust them.”

- 30-

If you want to make a killing, sell pet rocks. The business of informing society should not be merely a cash cow for the greedy.

Corporate demands 30 percent profits from its news operations. When they were private, they thought 25 percent was lavish, and sacrificed down to 23 percent when they needed to make magnanimous investments in their journalism. Top salaries and bonuses gouge investors more than living wages for journalists.

2. Top union wage at the Philadelphia Inquirer, for experienced reporters and copy editors, is $67,983.24; makeup editors get $50 more a week. Those complaining so bitterly about this make much more, of course. (Source: Guild contract online)

The person whose job it is to get the paper in on deadline is a nonunion management editor. The drivers are probably Teamsters; do they get overtime because these managers are not able to let go of stories to meet deadlines? Well-run papers have managed to eliminate all overtime.

3. Jeff, your internet evangelism would make more sense if accompanied by efforts to get everyone online. I would expect someone with your history to care more about the digital divide and less about stoking corporate windfalls because paper and presses are no longer such a chunk of the expenses.

4. Have you looked at what happens when there’s no budget for newsgathering any more? Where big papers are reducing staff and closing bureaus, small dailies in those areas are expanding to fill the void. Little more than shoppers, they’ll write nice stories about anybody who buys an ad. Meanwhile the big news site still has to struggle to perform the watchdog function with local advertising gone to the Podunk County Daily Times. And the big-paper executives retire to sunny beaches on the multimillion-dollar bonuses they accrued while making one clueless mistake after another, leaving the areas they’ve served so poorly without a reliable source of news and information.

Helluva revolution, Brownie!

1) Many of the papers going on the block are unionized. Not sure what legal recourse the new owner will have for breaking those contracts, but clearly delivery truck drivers making six figures in Philly (sources tell me it’s not uncommon) isn’t going to help the profit picture. In the pressroom of a unionized paper I worked at, the pressman broadcast the sound of a train whistle over the intercom whenever the shift went into overtime (the sound of the “gravy train”). Those days of unions milking low-margin papers are coming to a close.

2) I heard antitrust mentioned in conjunction with the sale of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Am I the only one who thinks that this is a silly idea given that newspapers are struggling for their existence (someone’s going to have dominance of a rapidly shrinking market given all of those other media choices)?

3) Employee-ownership has worked well and not. Keep in mind that stockholders are the back of the line when a company goes south — debtholders legally have first dibs. Just look at what happened at United Airlines to see that some things change but some things remain the same.

Finally, both beer and cola companies trade at decent P/E’s (Coke’s at 21 and Anheuser-Busch is at 19). Both Microsoft and Cisco are around 23.

Public companies are not only expected to show a profit, but to show growth as well. In fact the pricing of the stock depends more on the expectation of future growth than on the actual earnings, which is why mature companies such as beer and cola trade at a low P/E.

Rather than looking for a white knight in the public arena perhaps the employees should look into taking the companies private. They have a vested financial interest, and want to put out the best product they can. There have been examples of employee-owned companies in the past, several were quite successful.