Oct 28, 2018 7 min read

This year has been a bewildering adjustment for those of us living in Southwestern Pennsylvania who find it difficult to give up our print newspapers. Recently, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stopped publishing print editions on Tuesdays and Saturdays and began running head-scratching existentialist commercials to explain their move to digital. The finale of Pittsburgh print news seems inevitable. After all, the Tribune-Review already is a mostly ignored news source after going totally digital to avoid bankruptcy.

To add insult to injury, many of us also stopped receiving our print addition of the Wall Street Journal on Tuesdays and Saturdays because the Journal uses the P-G’s delivery network. After many weeks of promising a fix, still no WSJs delivered on the off days. Heaven help us if the stock market blows up on a Monday.

The final blow arrived when our reliable local Observer-Reporter was sold to a larger network of papers. We had all come to rely on the Northrop family to maintain and publish the O-R. With the sale came uncertainty and many questions: Would the O-R go digital? What would be the new editorial policy? Would there be less coverage of local events? Would our favorite comic strips disappear? So far, there appear to be few changes.

I read a great deal of internet digital news, but only those sources to which I do not subscribe. When I was forced to tackle the Saturday WSJ online because of the above nondelivery issue, no section of the paper or article was where it was supposed to be. What was an enjoyable experience in print turned into a headache on my tablet. Sometimes I go to a store with a newsstand and pay for the printed edition.

Aside from my personal discomfort, the time has arrived to consider the once unthinkable. What would the end of printed newspapers mean to our society and to the fabric of communities across America? Would the digital press continue to report on municipal meetings, the local theater groups or the high school sports teams? Would expensive, time-consuming investigative journalism be supported?

First, we must consider why newspapers are leaving print and moving online. It is basic economics accelerated by the recession of 2009. Major advertisers such as department stores, supermarkets, boutique retailers and car dealerships consolidated or went out of business. Those that survived often moved advertising and sales online to compete with Amazon. The profitable classified section of print newspapers saw listings for used cars, real estate and employment move to Craig’s List or other online services.

Previously, print publishers could count on young adults gravitating toward the purchase of newspapers as they made their way into the world. With millennials, who were raised getting all of their information online, the trend is over. This guarantees that along with advertising, print readership will decline over time, never to be replenished.

Before print newspapers (and magazines) began to disappear, they spent years getting smaller. Shrinking newsrooms, budgets, print runs and page counts all accelerated as the “cost to print” came closer to exceeding the “revenue from print.” It is simply more cost-effective to publish a digital newspaper.

What will the effect of this trend be on the news-reading public? One study, supported by a research grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, has closely followed the reading habits of the British when the national British daily, The Independent, stopped print publishing and went online in 2016. It first appeared that the number of digital readers it gained basically replaced the number of print readers it lost. But many believe the explosive news events of both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are responsible for the digital readership and make the number of new digital readers unsustainable over the long run.

The other results of the study are far more troubling. Print readers were found to spend significantly more time consuming news than digital readers, prior to the all-digital transition. After the transition, in-depth reading disappeared when the paper did. Fifty percent of its print readers read the newspaper almost every day (37 to 50 minutes) while online visitors read one story on the average of twice a month (6 minutes a month). The study concluded: “By going online only, The Independent decimated the attention it receives. The paper is now a thing more glanced at, it seems, than gorged on. It has sustainability but less centrality.”

One bright result from the study was that the international English-speaking readership expanded greatly with the all-digital format of this national newspaper. Of course, local papers that transition to all-digital will not benefit from this overseas expansion because the readership interest in local issues is minimal. On the other hand, one could argue that a local digital paper has a captive audience for local information, including the crime blotter, obituaries, local sports and calendar of events that will compel print readers to make the switch to digital.

Many astute observers of how digital content is prepared and distributed do not believe that the future of digital newspapers is any more intact over the long run than print journalism is today. Vice News co-founder Shane Smith forecasts “a bloodbath that will wipe out 30 percent of digital sites.” Those sites that dominate the internet, Facebook and Google lack any dedication toward original news. They have expressed no desire to act as responsible publishers, with reporters on the ground backed up by fact checkers dedicated to balanced reporting.

If, indeed, the existing model for producing unbiased original news is not profitable or sustainable in the digital format, there is a grave danger that all news on the internet will be suspected of being manufactured, fake or dissembled. Once the trust is lost, the famous mottos of the Financial Times, “Without Fear or Favor,” and of the New York Times, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” will mean nothing and a fundamental democratic institution will cease to function.

While it is true that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, who purchased the Washington Post, and philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong, who now owns the Los Angeles Times are willing to absorb large losses to keep responsible journalism alive, a few billionaires preserving a few urban newspapers is not the answer. A comprehensive plan and new business models must be developed to save the Fifth Estate, with no time to waste.

Thomas Jefferson wisely made an observation on newspapers that rings true today: “This formidable censor of the public opinion functionaries, by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peacefully, which must otherwise be done by revolution.” It is not difficult to imagine pitched battles in the streets, if balanced original news disappears and elected officials are permitted to say whatever they please to remain in office, with no reliable counterbalance.

Gary Stout is a Washington attorney.