TABLETS WERE HAILED AS THE SAVIOURS OF NEWSPAPERS. WHAT HAPPENED?
Why the ipad is, and is not the saviour of the newspaper industry
When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century, it was a marvel of modern technology.
Publishing became a major industry, as books, newspapers and magazines were the primary means for ideas to be shared.
Today, Gutenberg’s invention is in the power of everyone, because anyone can write their opinion on Facebook, start a blog, shoot a video or even put together an online newspaper – with instant access to a mass audience.
“Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away,” argues Clay Shirky, a professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. “Because the word ‘publishing’ means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done.”
With publishing gone, the post-publishing era means reading will be done on screens, from ipads to Kindles, smartphones and perhaps one day eyeglasses, with Google working on a prototype to bring the Net to your bifocals.
In this era, the dinosaurs of publishing – newspapers, magazines and books – have not yet figured out what role they will play.
That’s why when the ipad came out two years ago, followed by a multitude of tablets, many hailed it as the shot in the arm newspapers needed. By creating their own applications, newspapers can once again do what they do best: create informational packages in an easyto-read format.
About one-fifth of Americans now own a tablet, so newspapers have rushed to embrace the format, with more resources being poured in to create ipad or Android tablet editions. But will the new newspapers simply become apps? Can tablets alone save the industry?
Ken Doctor, a former executive with Knight Ridder newspapers, believes tablets can help newspapers transition away from ink and paper. Now an industry analyst, he said tablets have helped to bring about a shift in the mentalities of readers, making it acceptable to pay for news.
“Kind of by historical coincidence, the tablet came out at the same time newspapers started experimenting with paywalls,” Doctor said.
He said many newspaper companies have been able to use their tablet editions as selling points for digital subscriptions, or print subscriptions that include digital access.
The New York Times is using its ipad edition as a part of its all-digital subscription. Around the same time the company launched an ipad edition, it introduced a paywall that limits the number of articles readers can access on the website. After users see 10 stories, they must pay to access more. The Times reported that in the year after it introduced its paywall, digital subscriptions rose by 73 per cent to 454,000 – giving it the U.S.’S second-highest online subscription rate, behind the Wall Street Journal.
Closer to home, La Presse has put ipads on its five-year plan. Parent company Gesca told employees last year the goal was to reduce the newspaper’s print circulation to 75,000 from 200,000 as early as 2013; all seven Gesca-owned papers have similar goals. The company said it would give ipads to people who sign up for three-year subscriptions.
Doctor said surveys show that people seem to like reading news on tablets, with many saying they prefer the tablet experience to that of the newspaper. As tablets become cheaper to buy, Doctor says it’s merely a matter of time before newspapers flip the switch and stop printing altogether in favour of digital editions.
“The ipad is a game-changing news-reading device,” Doctor said. “If newspapers are going to charge for content, but people can get it anywhere, that makes a lot of sense. The tablet has really been the icing on the cake in that proposition.”
However, Doctor sees some dangers ahead for the industry, as many newspapers are devoting scant resources to tablets, essentially creating replica versions of the newspapers and failing to take advantage of the tablet to include videos, interactive graphics and social media integration. He says if that trend continues, newspapers could get surpassed by news aggregator sites like Google News and the mobile application Flipboard, which promise to deliver news in an easy-to-read format.
“Newspapers were late to social, mobile, search. I see that problem with tablets as well, because they’re not putting a lot of resources into it,” he said. “Those that fail to take advantage of this seismic shift in reading are going to lose out or get passed by. If daily newspapers don’t take this opportunity, players like Google, Yahoo and Flipboard will just do on the tablet what they do online, which is aggregate local content. It will be a better news-reading experience, where people can also find local.”
Not everyone agrees with Doctor’s assessment. Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York, and a renowned new media guru, believes tablets aren’t the destination, but a stop in the transformation of media.
“I think the siren call of tablets is dangerous and seductive to both editors and publishers, because it lulls them into the belief that they can return to the days when they had control over the experience, and the brand, the packaging and the business model,” said Jarvis, who is an adviser to the newspaper chain Postmedia, which owns The Gazette. “They can’t. The (Internet) link ruined it.” Jarvis said it makes sense not to devote too many resources into tablet editions, because more people read newspapers on the Web, on their phones, and in print.
“It’s a question of priorities,” he said. “The Web is where the audience and the advertisers are. I’d pay more attention to that. Ignoring the ipad? No. You want to pay attention to it, but I think one has to temper one’s investment.”
He said books, newspapers and magazines are undergoing a dramatic shift, and the attempt to re-create the newspaper experience in tablet form is like putting “old wine in new casks.”
“If you look at books, magazines and newspapers in digital form, they’re still recognizable as books, magazines and newspapers, which is to say that we have not broken the form and reinvented what’s appropriate for this new world,” Jarvis said. “And I think the ipad has delayed that process of disruption.”
In that process, media may move beyond screens, with the potential for holographic 3D images, or other forms of media not yet invented, he said. “I think the app is transitional. That doesn’t mean it will necessarily disappear, but I think we’ve barely begun to explore all the user interfaces that have come along.”