I'm thirty-seven years old. I grew up in a city that had three newspapers going after each other every single day. When I had my first experience in radio (in 1987 as an intern at WABC with the legendary Art Rust Jr.), there was no internet. You did your show prep by watching games, Sportscenter (which was very different back then), and reading the newspaper.
I grew up in a time where you read the paper (or papers) on the subway. It was a way to avoid eye contact with people you didn't want to be bothered by. Reading the paper, as opposed to listening to your Walkman (yes, I wrote Walkman) was a way to avoid making yourself a target for those who were looking to mug you.
I grew up in a house where we went to the candy store get the paper every day (before we discovered home delivery). Sunday was like a holiday in my house. My parents would buy all three newspapers just to get the maximum amount of coupons!
I have worked with and for newspapers as well. My first job in high school was working weekends at a local convenience store, where one of my jobs was to put the Sunday papers together (you don't think all those sections magically came together on their own, do you?). I also worked for the local paper in my junior year of high school, manning the sports desk at night for scores of high school games, and writing the occasional feature article.
My dream in high school was to be a sports columnist (boy did I take a left turn in college). In other words, I was a newspaper guy. I still am in many ways, but I fear for my friends who work for newspapers in this economy.
That's because newspapers are dying. This isn't just some internet blogger/podcaster saying it. This isn't may old friend Jay Mariotti saying it as he resigned his position with The Chicago Sun Times for a job at AOL. No, there is some tangible proof to this statement these days. That's because in Denver a couple of weeks ago, The Rocky Mountain News, one of that city's two daily papers, published its last issue. Denver, in the blink of an eye, went from being a two-paper town to a one-horse race (The Denver Post).
And, The Rocky Mountain News may not be alone. According to Time Magazine, there are ten other newspapers who are in danger of going under before 2009 is over. They are:
- The NY Daily News
- The Miami Herald
- The SF Chronicle
- The Fort Worth Star Telegram
- The Philadelphia Daily News
- The Minnesapolis Star Tribune
- The Cleveland Plain Dealer
- The Chicago Sun Times
- The Boston Globe
- The Detroit News
These aren't small newspapers. There are some of the biggest papers in the country. There is the chance that some of these papers will survive as internet entities only. But some of them will go completely under.
The prospect of this makes me sad. This will affect many of my friends and colleagues who work for newspapers (if you haven't noticed, radio stations use newspaper guys as paid insiders and guests) At the same time, I understand why newspapers are on the endangered species list.
The newspaper is no longer timely. Let's face it. By the time you open up the paper in the morning, you've seen the highlights of your local teams already. Maybe you already watched those highlights online somewhere. The bottom line is that radio, television, and the internet all have the ability to give you the news in a timely fashion. Newspapers have become yesterday's news today. It's a battle that papers have fought since the internet boom. It's a battle they have never won. People want their news, scores, and highlights now. They don't want to wait.
Newspapers are also not interactive. Sure, you have your Letters to the Editor and your Op-ed pieces, but for those who are tech savvy it isn't enough. We live in a world where anyone can launch a website and become a blogger. Anyone can have a voice. Anyone can call a radio show and rip on the coach or player. Anyone can vote in a poll on any of the major sports sites like ESPN. Newspapers were slow to offer their readers the chance to interact online, and by the time they did it was too late.
The paper has gone the way of the home phone. I have many friends who no longer have home phones. Their cell phone is their home phone. The economy has played a big part in this trend. Why pay for two phones when you can save money with just one? Those same people have decided it's easier (and less expensive) to log onto the net and get the same information at no cost as opposed to spending fifty cents a day for it.
The end result is what we saw happen to The Rocky Mountain News. We'll see more papers go out of business over the next few months and years.
And, as someone who grew up with the newspaper being a major part of my life, it makes me sad.
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