Advertising Funding Newspaper Content -- What Little Is Left!

Newspapers are certainly going through an interesting time.

It really wasn’t that long ago when newspapers actually had true circulation numbers and people really read the stories.

I know that everyone wants to put the blame on the Internet as the agent of destruction.

As the story they tell goes…

”People not only can access the news 24/7 on the web, they can easily get different perspectives of the same story from a variety of sources including those Blogs that have really lead to the demise of the newspapers.”

Back in the 1970s, many predicted that the newspapers were on their way out with television news that was so much more easy to digest…and then, with the launch of CNN, the naysayers all used the 24/7 argument that the papers were soon history.

I know that this is way out there on the limb, but many papers stopped gaining circulation when they lost perspective of what it meant to report the news.

Maybe it was the Washington Post and Watergate that became the cheap cocaine that all the editors and writers scouted out to find.

Maybe it was corporations like Cox, Gannet and E. W. Scripps that found it more affordable to mass produce on the publishing end.

Or maybe it was the accountants and corporate business management that decided it was way too expensive to actually author and present original stories and that the AP stories were just as good and a heck of a lot cheaper to produce.

Whatever prompted the change in news reporting, the papers have gotten smaller and smaller and the news content has gotten worse and worse.

In fact, it is very difficult now to distinguish what is actually the news and what is actually editorial commentary.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) has certainly seen much better days. Earlier this year, the paper canceled circulation in many of the central Georgia counties.

The AJC has reworked the format, but folks I know who still work there all have their resumes out circulating in hopes of finding a job before the paper issues another round of lay-offs...or worse yet, closes its doors.

Where I live now in Athens – a city just over an hour’s drive away from Atlanta – you cannot get the AJC delivered to the home nor can you buy it at the newsstands.

I am sure that the Athens folks will not like hearing this, but the local paper here in Athens is so bad that I celebrate each day they downsize it further because at least a few more trees will get a chance to live.

As a graduate of a journalism school, all we heard back in those college days was how great was pure journalism and how advertising really wasn’t much different from prostitution.

This journalism school I graduated from is known for its annual Peabody Awards that recognizes outstanding writing, perspectives and editorial.

The Academics get their hearts racing just thinking about it.

The Peabody Awards are really not too different than the Addy Awards that together reinforce a strong narcissism-fostering environment.

Yesterday’s local Athens Sunday paper truly captured the current moment in time. There were three times as many pages of advertising inserts as there were of any regular newspaper pages.

Yes…many of the inserts promoted “back-to-school” specials, but there were also ads for everything from toilet paper to vitamins to camping gear.

I wonder how many of the chief editors are picking up the phone today and calling the CMOs at places like Target, CVS, Kroger, Office Depot, Sears and Lowes to thank them for spending the marketing dollars that will bring food on the home table for at least another week or so.

Even though there are the occasional online short videos and pop-up promotions, I haven’t seen any advertising online as significant as the ad content in the Sunday papers.

I sometimes wonder if I were the Chief Editor of the AJC, if I would have gone and cancelled the outer county subscriptions and distribution.

Maybe…just maybe… I would have at least continued the Saturday and Sunday circulation. I know that if I had folks added to my weekend readership, my CPM (cost per thousand) might stay the same, but my revenue would go up.

And maybe…just maybe…. I would have gone out there and found some pure heart journalists that have a passion for reporting the news and keeping the editorial content totally confined to the editorial page.

Something tells me that newspaper publishing might just be in my genes.