The Daily Bugle: If it’s stolen, who cares!?
Sorry. I just can’t get that line from my previous post out of my head. I think it’s the perfect marketing slogan for a daily newspaper. It certainly represents the business philosophy of newspaper execs.
Imagine, for a moment, this scenario: Instead of racking up debt buying fading newspapers in the early 1990s, what if the big chains had gone into debt buying companies such as eBay, Yahoo and Google? Shoot, they might not have had to go into debt. Petty cash might have handled it back then.
Had they done that, there would no talk in the newspaper industry about how you can’t make money online. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they looked at the core of their business and said, “Hey, if it’s stolen, so what?”
Here’s a very personal example. I have been researching a family legend, dating back to the 1930s. A critical piece of that history was written about in a daily newspaper at the time. I called the paper to see about getting access to the story. The person I spoke to was very gracious, and we chatted about the fact that I ran a newspaper library for many years.
Alas, however, she wasn’t able to help me. The paper still doesn’t have any electronic record keeping, and they’ve given away all the microfilm from that era to libraries. For all this talk about how newspapers are the only source of information in most towns, the newspaper had no information whatsoever. Information that I would happily pay for. Online.
This is typical of the misguided business models newspapers still pursue. They see themselves as a disposable product, rather than a source of information. A different perspective might mean that they could make money. Online.
But this paper still doesn’t get it. They look at this fabulous treasure in their archives and say “Hey, if it’s stolen, so what? What would we have done with it anyway? Make money? Online?”
April 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I probably should retract this post. Upon further reflection, I realize we’re talking about newspaper executives here. If they HAD bought eBay, Google and Yahoo, the internet would be obsolete now.