The big question for newspapers buzzing around at the moment is, "Where will the money come from?".
Well I think I have the answer, but first I want to explain the bigger picture as I see it.
There's a big emotional attachment to the printed edition among a section of the public. But that section of the public is getting older. Only nineteen per cent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four claim even to look at a daily newspaper. What's more, the average age of the American newspaper reader is fifty-five and rising.
With fewer readers, so goes the advertising. And the money.
Young people go on-line. And why not? It knocks the socks of other media. You can read good, old-fashioned copy (or maybe not old-fashioned - as I will explain below), but you also get to watch video footage like on TV - which is exciting and engaging (watch Jeremy Bowen getting shot at for example).
Plus you have the flexibility of a newspaper in choosing what you want to read/watch. It's why CDs knocked cassette-tapes out of the ring. You can access the bit you want straight away. You don't have to sit through three stories, which are very "worthy" but don't interest you, until you get to what you want to see.
We can also answer back now too. No more shouting at the TV, shout directly onto the message board. You might even get a response.
Then, on top of that, you can get as much or little detail as you want. Just Google / Wikipedia the topic and you can down as deep as you want to. Want to see another point of view? Good sites link to someone else who's saying something different. News story on Iraq? Now switch over and see of Al-Jazeera make of it. A side-bar in a newspaper is often a useful way of getting the context for a story. The bit that's new, the "news bit", (peace deal falters over question of Jerusalem) is confusing, boring and seems unimportant, without the "context-bit", something giving the bigger picture (What's the "question of Jerusalem"? Why do they care? Why do I care?). But with the web, no longer a grey, dry print out of the big dates of the Israeli-Palestine conflict; rather, animated maps, a well-written FAQ, a host of links to other sources, and a separate piece by the reporter, explaining face-to-camera the history.
But if the web's so great, what's the problem? Well after they tried charging for access for a while, newspapers switched to advertising. But it's been a disappointment. Advertising just doesn't pay the bills. Advertisers prefer to go on search engines - where they can advertise their camera just at the moment someone is thinking (and typing into Google) "Where can I buy a good camera?". On-line sections of newspapers are massively subsidised by print sales. So what to do...
Well first let me explain, that there's one more consequence of the way an internet based piece of news links to sources full of more detail, that hasn't been considered much yet. With a side bar full of links to encyclopedia articles, separate documentaries, and so on, there's something else that we can do. And it's to do with the possiblities this repository of more info on demand presents for changing the way articles are currently written.
The current journalist structure is an "inverted pyramid". In other words, the first sentence sums up the story, then the next paragraph goes a little further, and so on and so on: layers and layers of greater detail. Legend has it that this dates from the Civil War, when reporters were worried their wires would get cut off at any moment when delivering their story, and thus the need to put their most important information first.
The problem is that this takes all the curiosity out of it. You get the end at the beginning. The finale at the start. But that's not how other communications work. What Chip and Dan Heath call "curiosity gaps" is what advertisers, marketers and authors of page-turning thrillers all do naturally. Why not newspapers? Why can't the news be a "gripping read"?
Imagine a newspaper of the future. A big, broad-sheet sized slate, not shiny, but matt-finished and readable like paper - yet no worries about spilt orange juice. You sit at the table, munching away at your cereal, flicking your hands across its surface (see the CNN "magic wall") watching videos, and reading copy; but this time it's like you're reading a thriller. You're following the adventures of a reporter in the conflict-zone. You getting to know about the conflict. But maybe you know a little bit about the reporter too. Less a series of reports, more video-blog. It may be unprofessional for the reporter to talk about how scared they were, or how they fancied the cameraman from CNN, but hey, you never watched "professional news" anyway.
As the old-guard who feel it is their job to "protect" journalism from "dumbing-down", frivolity and becoming "soft" lose readers (and eventually their jobs), a new generation will emerge, who understand that information has to engage the right and left side of the brain. That involves a writing process that makes space for emotion, curiosity, and stories. It's what all good school teachers understand instinctively - trained from years of doing their journalism in front of a live studio audience.
But where does this leave us on the finance question? "Where's the money going to come from?!" I hear you scream. Don't worry, be patient. I'll get to that.
The "newspaper disease", as Roger Black calls it, is the result of an industry that has come to see itself as a kind of public-service, like doctors or the civil service. They have a duty to be there, like guardians-of-the-realm, there to protect us from devious governments and bad grammar.
But the truth is they are there because readers want to read what they produce. Of course, what a lot of readers want is accurate and objective information. They want protection from devious governments. However, the key verb there is want. Journalism may be good for our lives, but so are restaurants. Yet no restauranteur believes he deserves to survive, "or else the public will starve". To extend my little metaphor further, we can talk about brocolli. Why? Because "brocolli" has been the metaphor of choice among media-types for the news that is "good for us". In other words, fruit and veg is good for the health, but its dull and tasteless. Well, what I'm saying, is that fruit and veg is strawberries and peaches and plums too. News can be exciting and delicious.
An example? Here's one off the top of the head. How about conflict-zone soaps? Yes, a soap like Eastenders or Coronation Street. Explicitly fiction, using local actors, in English or with subtitles, it would reflect one family's life in a conflict zone - with all the plot twists, love-triangles and fights that make drama so captivating. But linked to the site, (it should be on the web of course, even if you choose to watch it from the sofa on a big iMac type thing), would be the life-stories and blogs of the actors themselves. And a documentary from the "hard-news" journalist explaining the context. And even flashy maps if you like. The point is, it would be interesting and engaging in a way hardly imagined by news editors these days. Today Students buy entire series of a programme on DVD and watch them back-to-back, solid over a 3 day period, with odd breaks for sleep and food. Do they do they do that with the output from your news organization?
Then we might start to see the break down of the artificial barriers that we've inserted into the human experience of learning about the world. No-one argues that the only place you can learn about the world is from non-fiction. Even if the topic (politics for e.g.) is usually the domain of news, do people learn nothing from fiction-treatments of the topic (West Wing, Yes Minister)? Of course they learn loads. It's not so much delivered as absorbed, but none the less important at that. It's like what Dr Kerry Weaver of ER walking around on her clutches did for understanding of adisability, or how the character of Mark Fowler in EastEnders educated people about HIV. And this is the start of the answer to where the money is going to come from.
If one learns about the news topics from all sorts of sources, why the divides between News and Entertainment in the broadcasting company? Between the Fiction department and the Newspapers in the publishing company? Is news was drama, couldn't it get some of drama's budget?
The answer is the money will come when people pay for it. Deep-pocketed benefactors, whether they be governments (BBC) or individuals (Al-Jazeera) are rare exceptions if one considers the entire news market. Citizen -journalism doesn't get round the problem that most people find news dull. No the solution will come from the market. In other words people will pay for it.
"But the internet public don't like paying for anything on-line!" I hear you say. I'm not sure how true this conventional wisdom is. Lots of people do pay for lots of things on-line - books, movies and music. And as people are increasingly finding out when their free stuff fails - there's no-one to complain to if you don't pay for it. When you've put some money down you get to shout at someone. I think most of the early resistance has gone, as companies come to the fore who are "real" (Google or Microsoft vs. one more anonymous M-Matrix Solutions Media type thing); fears about credit-card fraud fade, more and more people experience through Amazon or eBay, buying stuff on-line, and the main users of the internet, the young, get older and in turn have more money.
But the truth is they won't pay for it if it's dull. Or bland. Or boring. That's where the real work has to be done. Make news fascinating, page-turning, thrilling stuff and you're on to a winner. AND you'll get your money.
