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“You gotta be freakin’ kidding me!” That was my reaction to a Reuters article that I came across. I am still a little taken aback, as they say, about the even the threat of the US government looking into ways to bailout the struggling newspaper / old school media industry. Right now it’s more talk than anything else but if someone said it in a public forum then you know there are greater rumblings going through Washington with a similar stink on them. I guess you can guess where I stand on this one, huh? The Reuters article starts off A top Democratic lawmaker predicted on Wednesday that the government will be involved in shaping the future for struggling U.S. media organizations. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, saying quality journalism was essential to U.S. democracy, said eventually government would have to help resolve the problems caused by a failing business model. Waxman, other U.S. lawmakers and regulators are looking into various options to help a newspaper industry hurt by the shift in advertising revenues to online platforms. Can you see me shaking my head now? Did the government bailout the horse and buggy industry when the automobile was invented? Did the government bailout the radio industry when TV came along? Did anyone bailout the transcribers of the world when the Gutenberg press started producing the printed word? If journalism is essential to the US democracy then let the free market system that has built this democracy into one of the greatest powers of the modern age (at least until recently that is) take care of how this plays out! The last thing we need is the government handing tax benefits and even worse, more deficit funded handouts to the likes of the Washington Post, New York Times and anything that Rupert Murdoch is whining about these days. So who will profit from this concept more: our democracy or the likes of Rupert Murdoch? Hey let’s just go out and figure out which failing business model victim looks the most like AIG, Bank of America or Government General Motors and throw money at their executives business and see just how much better it gets. WTF! This is not a government issue for goodness sake. This is a paradigm shift issue. The world is changing and not everything survives change. Why are we so obsessed with keeping something alive that may not have a place in the new world media order? And if it does have a place let the free market principles that allowed it to thrive for so long determine what piece or pieces will move forward as we boldly go further in the digital age. Of course there is some press constituency that thinks this a great idea. Wonder who pays their bills? Free Press, a public interest group, said the search for solutions to the crisis in journalism should be premised on the idea that news-gathering is a public service, not a commodity. Waxman’s “indication that government has a role to play is both bold and soberly sensible,” said Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott on the sidelines of the FTC conference. I call BS on this one. Honestly, if the newspapers were truly a public service shouldn’t they have acted more responsibly to the change that very public is undergoing in how it consumes news? Business change is not always about failure; it’s usually more about progress and smarts or lack thereof. If the newspapers have ignored the myriad tell tale signs that have been written on the wall for years now why should MY TAX dollars save them from their own arrogance and stupidity? What have they done for me and my business? Geesh, just the rumor of this happening really ticks me off! Hey, Senator Waxman and anyone else who thinks this is a good idea! Shut up and go read your Washington Post while it’s still here! Phew! That felt great because I am part of the new free press and I plan on being around in the digital age as long as I can identify what people really want. Will it last forever? Probably not but if I am not smart enough to get on board the next train that is heading for the future don’t bail me out. That’ll be my problem not yours.

Excerpt from:
News Bailout Next?

I’ve decided that I really don’t need as many of you coming to Marketing Pilgrim each day. In fact, I’ve decided to start charging for the content that we publish. Oh, but I will still keep the advertisers’ money. They’ll just have to get used to the idea that we don’t have as many eyeballs viewing their ads. And, lastly, I’m kicking out Google. Yeah, I don’t need it bringing any additional readers to the site. They just consume extra bandwidth. Have I gone insane? I haven’t–I’m not really doing any of the above–but media mogul Rupert Murdoch quite possibly has! Speaking in an interview with his own Sky News Australia channel, Murdoch–whom I can never look at without thinking of Spitting Image –bluntly explained how he might ban Google from indexing his newspapers’ content: “I think we will [remove our websites from Google’s search index] but that’s when we start charging,” he said. He added: "The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories – they just take them. That’s Google, that’s Microsoft, that’s Ask.com, a whole lot of people … they shouldn’t have had it free all the time, and I think we’ve been asleep." I’m not going to bore you to death with obvious statements about the death of newspapers and web users expecting free content, so I’ll just let you make up your own mind as to whether Murdoch is a genius or not. For those of you interested, you can watch the entire interview here , or below:

See more here:
Rupert Murdoch to Google: “Steal” Someone Else’s Stories!

I am still rubbing my eyes to see if this is one of those sleep-deprived, delusional, mirage type things that can play tricks with you. Nope, it’s real but you don’t need to peel back too many layers on this one to see that the newspaper side of the Washington Post Co.’s business is actually keeping that number lower. At least you can think that the paper can be propped up by the other media holdings for the time being. In a bit of irony it’s the New York Times that reports The company, which owns Newsweek magazine, Kaplan education services and television properties along with its namesake newspaper, said Friday it earned $17.1 million, or $1.81 per share. That compares with net income of $10.1 million, or $1.08 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue climbed 2 percent to $1.15 billion. The newspaper division, which includes the Post, The Daily Herald in Everett, Wash., and dozens of local weeklies, whittled its operating losses through buyouts and cost-cutting to $23.6 million, down from $82.7 million a year ago. So at least the Washington Post newspaper is cutting back on its losses. That’s good in a backwards kinda way isn’t it? This ‘positive’ movement did happen despite a steeper than expected 28% decrease in advertising revenue for the quarter. Industry wide the news continues to play like a cheap Halloween horror movie with the carnage still happening at a rapid pace and no real end in site for the grisly results. The Post’s decline was comparable to what has been reported by other big publishers — which also have managed to improve earnings by cutting labor and other expenses. The New York Times Co.’s advertising revenue plunged 27 percent in the most recent quarter. Ad revenue in Gannett Co.’s publishing division, which includes USA Today and more than 80 other newspapers, dropped 28 percent. So it looks like the best way to survive as a newspaper is to be part of a company that is diversified. If you are a newspaper only organization or the dependence on revenue is heavily weighted toward newspaper holdings the news is still grim. In a near throwaway line fro the Times, the story gets even darker since the idea that being online as a newspaper will ensure survival is not a sure thing at all. The Post Co.’s newspaper Web revenue, which comes mainly from Washingtonpost.com, also stalled. It fell 18 percent after showing a 9 percent decline in the previous quarter. They call that a stall? I call it a call for the lifeboats. Two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy defines a recession so this indicator is that even the online side of the newspaper business is not going well at all. If that goes south as well as the print editions then what else is there? Nothing. Well, I like reading a paper in the right circumstances as much as the next guy but I wonder when the day comes that there won’t be one to buy and read? Any fortune tellers out there? Gotta a date for the end of the newspaper era?

Read more from the original source:
Washington Post Co. Posts a 69% Increase in Profits