Save Trees, Kill The Future

So long newspapers. You guys were great. I really appreciated all you did. Where would I be without you? Huh? I’d be one stupid asshole. And where would the hobos be? Cold, that’s where. Very cold. In the 30s, newspapers were known as “Hoover blankets” because President Hoover made some awesomely lame decisions and newspapers were all people had to keep warm. Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more like people won’t be able to use newspapers and call them Bush blankets for this depression, mostly because newspapers are dying. Revenue this year is down 20%.

This week, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News announced they will offer home delivery only on Thursday, Friday and (Free Press only) Sunday. That’s two days a week for the News and three times a week for the Free Press. Last week the New York Times announced it was borrowing…

…up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.

The Tribune Company, which owns the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy. The company also owns 10 other newspapers. They are not worth mentioning because they are not in giant, awesome cities. So goes life, small people in small places.

The Washington Post went with an "executive pay freeze."

There's more news coming out of the Washington Post's strategy meeting today: some top executives will not be getting raises due to the tough economic times plaguing the industry.

Executive editor Marcus Brauchli confirmed to Politico that there will be a pay freeze for Vice Presidents at the newspaper Ñ a group which includes two former executive editors.

Newsweek has decided to make their magazine smaller. How great does that sound? Not only is the weekly magazine completely useless in the Internet age, but it’s going to be smaller.

Newsweek magazine is planning staff cuts as part of a major makeover that is likely to result in a slimmer publication with fewer subscribers and more photos and opinion inside its pages, according to people close to the magazine.

Well, it sounds like it’s going to be more idiot friendly, with all the pictures and whatnot. It’s cute to see them give it a go. Magazines are fucking toast. I’ve canceled all my subscriptions, but one. Can’t give up my Harpers yet, but that day will come.

Much of this is occurring quickly because of the recession. Companies aren’t buying ads and newspapers kind of make their money from ads. I heard that from a guy. Maybe this will just make their deaths quicker. There is no reason to buy a newspaper in this day and age, except for those who like their fingers to turn black. By the time a newspaper arrives at my house, I know the news. Weird thing is, I get my news from newspapers online. Uh, oh. There seems to be some sort of catch-22 here.

How in the hell are newspapers going to survive if read them online, instead of buy them? I don’t think I have ever clicked on an L.A. Times ad. Ever. I don’t click any ads online. I have Adblock and I rarely see an ad that interests me. Porn ads are nice. They give me boners. Just a tip, L.A. Times!

TV advertising will clearly have to move towards product placement more and more. Maybe newspapers can toss in a little product placement here and there.

Today in Baghdad, a car bomb exploded, killing 72 and injuring 139. The vehicle was a 2.5-liter, 4 cylinder 2008 Nissan Altima Hybrid 4 door sedan and got an impressive 35-mpg in the city before exploding. Shrapnel from the factory-installed XM/Sirius satellite radio killed one victim. Authorities were surprised someone would blow up such a first class vehicle.

Okay, while I would enjoy that it would be wrong. Pay per post advertising is being done, but it won’t fly in newspapers. They already tried pay-for-online-subscriptions. People didn’t bite. The New York Times attempted to charge for a better-than-the-rest-of-the-newspaper-section. Nobody went for it and they stopped. Now this is not to say there aren’t quite a few different ways to advertise on the web: Pay-per-page view banners, pay-per-click text ads, pay-per-transaction ads, paid inclusion in search results, paid listing in information services and pay-per-connection on social networks. They work; they just bring in less than charging readers to buy a paper and charging advertisers to put ads in that paper. That shit is done.

Oh, and I can’t leave out the classifieds. That was a $326 million business. Now Craigslist is the big dog and the site only made $40 million in 2006. That’s a drop of 88%.

Okay, so here we are. Expect every newspaper to become a one newspaper town. The L.A. Times has been in talks to merge with both the Orange County newspaper and the San Fernando newspaper. Then it will spread. Soon San Diego will join in the fun. And on and on. Fewer and fewer papers being printed on fewer and fewer days. We’re going to end up with a couple of national papers and that’s it. But that’s the physical paper. What about the Internet?

That’s what worries me. Even though our media largely sucks, we need reporters sneaking around and digging into garbage (I’m pretty sure that’s all they do). Less profit means fewer journalists, which means less keeping an eye on our political bitches. I don’t know about you, but I like my political whores to be under the spotlight. And democracy sort of needs the press to be kicking ass. This could get really grim as more reporters disappear and we end up with more and more…blogs? Oh, my. That would be an ugly future. Imagine if you got all your news from me.

Wait, that is fucking awesome.

Forget everything I just wrote.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/politics/23473/Save-Trees-Kill-The-Future/