“In general, I have very little time for Scoble, and true to form there are about six things in the first half of this alone that make me want to beat the stupid out of him with a shovel. But there’s also food for thought in there this time.” -lifted from a delicious note

Here is the offending article: The newspaper industry just gave away another free meal, er Twitter: do they have any left? -from scobleizer.com

What isn’t explored in Robert Scoble’s article, or maybe what isn’t understood by the author of that article, is that when a disruptive technology comes along, The Internet, in this case, little to nothing can be done to prevent seismic changes in business practices.  Mark Federman sums this up way better than I can.  Here he is talking about Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium is the message”.

Marshall McLuhan was concerned with the observation that we tend to focus on the obvious. In doing so, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. Whenever we create a new innovation – be it an invention or a new idea – many of its properties are fairly obvious to us. We generally know what it will nominally do, or at least what it is intended to do, and what it might replace. We often know what its advantages and disadvantages might be. But it is also often the case that, after a long period of time and experience with the new innovation, we look backward and realize that there were some effects of which we were entirely unaware at the outset. We sometimes call these effects “unintended consequences,” although “unanticipated consequences” might be a more accurate description. Read The Whole Thing

Scoble’s list of things “newspapers gave away” sure are nice …after the fact but what isn’t discussed is that the mere existence of the internet and ubiquity of connectivity via computers or cell phones has smashed the newspaper business model.  Can you blame Sony for not creating the Ipod?  I guess, but then you would also have to blame horse breeders for not starting Ford Motor Company and who’s the last moron who dug a shitter in someone’s yard?  Why didn’t they invent the flushing toilet?  They all just “gave it away” I guess.

The only thing I agree with is that newspapers should not give up their physical distribution routes so easily.  It is the one thing that can differentiate them from… me or Google News or the Huffington Post.  We don’t have the distribution channels that the Star-Ledger or Washington Post have.  They should be selling that service to readers and advertisers via catalog and sample subscriptions or anything else really.  I am quite certain those newspaper trucks can hold more than just newspapers.

When Clay Shirky wrote about the internet devaluing content in 1995, he was the closest I have ever read about anyone predicting the demise of the newspaper industry.  At one point in that article he writes, “When a product can be profitable on gross revenues of one-half of one cent per use, anyone deriving income from traditional classifieds is doomed in the long run”.

Craigslist, Monster, Ebay, all started after Shirky’s article and all make a killing selling items and services formerly found in newspaper classifieds.  Newspaper didn’t give anything away Scoble, the internet paradigm is merely creating new opportunities where none previously existed.  Just today for example, PNG National Sales Director Eric Cox, covered the Boston Marathon “as Solo Journalist …one camera, one laptop and on-location video streaming live to your computer via broadband”.

Craigslist could probably start a newspaper on their revenues, but every newspaper cannot start their own Craigslist.  The economics don’t work in reverse.

The last time there was such an increase in publishers and publishing was when Gutenberg’s movable type became widespread and The Church lost control of literacy rates and content distribution.  I guess they gave that away too?  No.

Newspapers are not failing because they are giving it all away.  Newspapers are failing because they have lost their virtual monopoly on content distribution.  With that loss comes lower margins and cashflow.  So is journalism dead?  No, but newspapers that require 30% profit margins to stay afloat probably are.  Media outlets that are devoid of these legacy costs and cashflow requirements like blogs and blog networks are making money as are news media outfits that never had costs associated with their distribution model.

The argument that newspaper sites cannot become sustainable without putting up a paywall is a cop-out when there are so many news media sites doing it without a paywall.  Focused sites like baristanet, westseattleblog, boing boing, thebudgetfashionista, Cnet, Techcrunch, NPR, BBC, Politico, etc… there are thousands and all are free to use with multiple revenue streams.

The answer is simple. Unlearn newspapers and learn publishing in the internet paradigm.

UPDATE:

I should have called this article “The Great Unlearning” in honor of Nicholas Carr’s The Great Unbundling.

Related posts:

1. Alan Mutter Jumps The Shark – Getting Over Newspapers
2. Belo Spins Off Newspapers as Murdoch Consolidates
3. How Scott Adams Saved Newspapers – I’ll Pretend I Didn’t Read This
4. Amazingly, This Guy Still Doesn’t Get It