Paper and Ink (Online)

As the business manager of a print publication, I can’t help but jump into a discussion about the issues raised in Jeffrey Kalmus’s article in the most recent issue of the HPR about the decision by the New York Times to charge for online content.  Two experiences last week stirred my thinking about the economics of print journalism.  The first was a talk given by Katharine Weymouth, publisher of the Washington Post; the second was a dinner with Plantu, the cartoonist for Le Monde and founder of “Cartooning for Peace.”
At a talk here on campus co-sponsored by the HPR, Ms. Weymouth addressed the economics of print journalism head-on.  She told how her late grandmother, Katharine Graham, who led the Post for nearly thirty years had said that the newspaper had to “do well to do good,” a statement that financial success was necessary for good reporting, a point addressed particularly well by Jeff in his article.
Ms. Weymouth’s talk concentrated heavily on the status and future of print journalism in the Age of the Internet.  She quoted numerous statistics (pun intended) about the Post’s distribution and revenues and who gets his news from where.  She noted that although the Post certainly has a corner on the print market in Washington, D.C., the Huffington Post, which only offers its content online, receives more visitors and hits than the Post’s website.  She posited that because of the ready availability of news and analysis online, traditional newsmagazines will become extinct unless they make a niche for themselves, giving as examples The New Yorker, The Economist, and High Times.
Ms. Weymouth also referenced the side projects that some publications have adopted in an effort to bring in some extra cash.  She did not use this as an opportunity to address the pay-to-play political salons she had planned to hold at her home with journalists, lobbyists, and government officials paying upwards of $25,000 for a seat until a memo describing the events was leaked.  (Weymouth claims that the memo was unauthorized and was inaccurate in its description of her salons.)  She did, however, reference a travel service that the Post itself has in the works and the dating service recently started by the Guardian.  Weymouth estimated that “Guardian Soulmates” brings the newspaper around $500,000 a year but noted that such a service would not gain approval at the Post.
These side projects are just a few of the ways in which the newspapers are attempting to bring in the money that they need to do “good” in the words of Ms. Graham.
Plantu stopped by last Tuesday at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies on his tour with “Cartooning for Peace,” a group of cartoonists committed to using the art of journalism, so to speak, as a force for peace.  The issue of the economics of print journalism came up, as would be expected in a room full of print journalists, with someone even asserting that when Plantu retires or dies, his cartoons on the front page of Le Monde will be replaced with photographs because of expense.
The discussion eventually turned to the general effects that the Internet has had and does have on culture and society.  Daryl Cagle, a political cartoonist for MSNBC and a blogger in his own right, stated his belief that the Internet has resulted in fragmentation and that it is consequently becoming more and more difficult for large publications to maintain their control over the market.
It is my hope that Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand save the day once again by ensuring that there will be a supply to meet the demand for the certain kinds of journalism that can only be produced by large publications like Le Monde, the Guardian, and the Washington Post.  However, the businessmen in suits who buy the Economist and the Wall Street Journal at the newsstand just might not do enough to counterbalance the hordes of young people who swear by blogs and online news aggregators.
Indeed, we may one day live in a world without newsprint, a world dominated by the technological progeny of the iPad and the Kindle.  If you want to prevent this, of course, you could always subscribe…
Photo credit: CGoulao, Flickr Creative Commons