I’ve never been in a boat with a cracked hull, watching it fill with water, bailing with an old milk jug. And planning my next ’round the world cruise.
But that’s what it feels like today in the world of newspapers.
There’s a leak in the boat, the water line inside rises as the hull dips to meet the water level outside. But it’s time to think, well, what do we do next year.
Hit by the double whammy of a sinking national economy and changing readership habits, newspapers – the institution – are in a sink or swim situation.
But the dilemma is you can’t just work to survive today’s disaster. If that’s your goal, you won’t. Competition is too tough, technology and product move too quickly. If you take a deep breath, you’ve lost the moment.
But with water rushing in, it’s pretty logical to take that deep breath before figuring out the rescue scenario.
A paralysis can set in and that water quickly and quietly filling the boat looks so serene and peaceful as it gurgles your way.
But ultimately it pulls you down.
Newspapers have to shake the paralysis and do “something” – anything – different online.
For all the talk about speed and flexibility, some newspapers still move at the old pace. Lots of meetings, over-planning, slow decision-making. That’s not so much a criticism as a reflection on a long history of careful thought and process, when the balance sheet was different.
Now it’s time to move; the world has changed.
So, in that sense, it was good to see that The New York Times is in the midst of a survey with their valuable print readers, trying to figure out if there is any type of pay online model that could work.
One scenario is $5 a month, half that for print subscribers. Looks like one option is to put some areas behind a paid wall. No scenario calls for blocking off all content.
The idea of paid content online is odious. But perhaps there’s a way that allows portions to go paid, other portions to remain free.