It's the End of the World as We Know It

The Chronicle Herald

As of 12:01 a.m. last night, the Chronicle Herald editorial strike entered its third week. The print edition continues to arrive every morning in the office. I check. I look at what's above the fold on the front page and give it a heft. It's thin and light, but it was like that before the strike. It's the most contact I've had with the print edition of the Herald since a weekend at White Point last summer when it was delivered to our cabin. I spent a lazy morning on our little deck reading the news, free of the largely vacuous online commentary of Herald subscribers, and completed the crossword. It was fantastic. I was also on holiday with nowhere else to be and nothing that needed to be done. As for before that day and every day since, my media consumption is entirely online.

I haven't read a printed book in about three years. I read e-pubs on my over-sized smart phone or my less clever Kobo Mini, both of which can hold hundreds of books. The last time for print was a different weekend away at cabin when, in a moment of unplugged nostalgia, I picked up a couple trade paperbacks.  It wasn't fantastic. I had to sit next to a light source and hold the book just so in the evenings to read the text. My phone is back lit, perfect for poor light and my Kobo displays text perfectly under a glaring sun, so I load the same books on both. I couldn't select an unfamiliar word and immediately call up a dictionary definition. I couldn't flip back and forth between the current book the series and the previous ones to refresh my memory of past story lines. Compared to the convenience and functionality of my electronic devices, devices that I once upon a time said would never replace printed books, the printed books were dumb objects. The stories within didn't change, but my preference for how I consumed those stories did. It was a change that came about because something better came a long.

This observation is likely not win me any friends in the journalism community, but printed newspapers are also dumb objects. I know that sounds harsh, but it's true. By virtue of its medium, there isn't a single news story that will appear in print tomorrow that isn't yesterday's news. That isn't good enough, because something better came along. News breaks all day long on the internet.

Now I will be the first to admit I engaged in hand wringing and hyperbolic panic about the death of newspapers, especially when the Herald strike first seemed likely, but I've spent the last two weeks somewhat obsessively learning about the Herald's current financial situation and the financial situation of newspapers everywhere. The newspaper business model that has operated for the last 150 years is dead. Not dying. Dead.

In 1986, the print edition of the Herald had 138,000 daily subscribers. In 2006, it fell to 111,000 daily subscribers. In 2016, 74,000 daily subscribers. The Herald sells more digital subscriptions today, but combined subscriptions only total 94,000; and subscriptions were never a main source of revenue. Subscribers were what sold advertising and classifieds, which in turn, paid for the newsroom, which in turn gave subscribers a reason to keep subscribing.

I don't remember using the printed classifieds in the last decade. A trip through the Wayback Machine tells me that a 2006 Monday edition of the Herald had 394 listings for unfurnished apartments and 87 houses for sale. In yesterday's Saturday classifieds (the big day for classified advertising) there were 22 total rental accommodations and seven houses for sale. This isn't the strike, this is Kijiji. A 2 x 3 inch classified in the Saturday Herald is nearly $300. An advertisement with photos and as much text as you want to type is free on Kijiji every day. You can promote your ad for as little as $8.50.

According to the Chronicle Herald, "North American newspapers are estimated to have lost three-quarters of their classified ads to the likes of Kijiji and Craigslist and half their general ads to the likes of Google and Facebook, outfits that pop them up as clickbait on your device." I would hazard a guess that a significant portion of the remaining classifieds result from obituaries and legislative obligations to publish notices. As for general ad revenue, Google and Facebook offer advertisers better advertising. This is not a grand conspiracy on the part of these "outfits" to deprive journalists and printers of their daily bread, they offered customers a better product and customers took it. This is capitalism. This is why we drive cars, not horses and buggies. (It's also a little myopic to criticize those "outfits" for clickbait advertising while lamenting the inability to sell advertising space.)

Capitalism is why newspapers thrived for most of the last 150 years. Newspapers had the best product. Oh sure, I can drone on about the importance of media as a gatekeeper for government and business and to serve as a voice for the people, but the newspaper business was not birthed and sustained by philanthropic intent, it was to make money. It made a lot of money. The only modern thing about the term "media baron" is the use of the word "media", which has replaced both "newspaper" and "press" in style guides. The barons themselves have been around since newspapers started, that's how they became barons. The movie Citizen Kane, a fictionalized composite of three media barons, is 75 years old.

Since then, the barons' numbers have consolidated greatly. In Canada, a handful of people control nearly all the newspapers. It shows. In the last election, those people endorsed a Conservative government in various arrangements, including ludicrously enough, the Globe and Mail recommending a Conservative government followed by the prompt resignation of its leader (as likely as a unicorn). The actual voice of the people gave the Liberals a healthy majority. If this is gate keeping, the rest of the fence is down.

Now on that front, I know from the same Herald article that it is the largest and virtually the only independently owned English daily newspaper in Canada, but think about that. The rest are gone. Speaking of unicorns, the Herald is one of the last. To be sure, I do not want the Herald to fail, nor do I want anyone to lose their jobs. It's just unreasonable to think that appeals to brand, to history, and to consumer loyalty on either side of the strike are going to somehow offset an obsolete business model.

Journalism is not dead. In terms of informing the people, it's never been so easy to reach so many people in so little time in so many places. No one has to wait until tomorrow to find out what happened in the world today. In terms of gate keeping, the most explosive muckraking (whistle-blowing) journalism in the last decade came from a wiki site run by internet activists. The medium has changed, the filters have changed, the very foundation has changed, but the news will continue. The news organizations that adapt will continue.

It is the end of the (newspaper) world as we know it, but I feel (relatively) fine.