Newspapers surprised we don’t buy them

Newspapers are hurting. Reporters are getting laid off, and whole sections are being downsized or eliminated. Shad Plank laments the days when reporters actually covered the General Assembly in person.

Rush Limbaugh at CPAC, as usual, said what needed to be said. Newspapers are a business where the customer is always wrong.

“Have you ever called to complain about whatever they do? They say, yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full. They hang up and say you’re too stupid to know how they’re doing what they’re doing. You can’t get it. You’re not sophisticated enough (Rush)”

The things newspapers don’t realize:

1) They think they’re being balanced. Honestly! I explain to my newsie friends that when they decide to cover story A and not story B, they are exhibiting a bias. They look at me like I’m from Mars.

Every time they endorse a Democrat over a Republican, they have a quantifiable reason why, and they’ll contradict that exact reason in the next election when that reason would benefit a Republican. Ever notice how when a Dem is “more experienced,” the newspaper slobbers over his qualifications, but when a Republican is the experienced one, he’s attacked for his vision, or tossed aside in a rush for “change.”

2) Advertising – Want to know why advertising rates are down? Because newspaper advertising is too expensive for most small businesses to do on an ongoing basis. A one page ad for one day could cost as much as $5,000. That same $5,000 could buy so much local tv or radio that it would be coming out of your ears. For one day in the newspaper. Advertising is repetition, and newspapers make it too expensive for most businesses to buy enough ads to get that.

If newspapers pretended they were Reagan and cut their ad rates, and advertised them, they’d get more revenue than they’d know what to do with.

3) Stop doing what everyone else is doing better. Between ESPN and the internet, I know everything I want to know about sports out of my area. Pulling up my TV listings online, however, is a pain, because I have to scroll for hours and key in a specific date.

So, what does my newspaper cut and what does it keep? It cuts the weekly TV listings guide and keeps printing the scores of every game known to man in an entire section.

When you cut the things that print does best, and keep the things print doesn’t do best, eventually your product isn’t a “must have.”

Do what print can do best, leave the glib and superficial to the TV folks who want to spend 10 minutes out of 30 talking about if it’s raining outside. Leave the interactivity to the bloggers. Give your subscribers things they can’t get anywhere else, and even if they can, it’s better to have it in hand.

Printing the latest AP story that I got online last night isn’t “must read” material this morning.

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About the author

Brian Kirwin

The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.