The future of printed news

The future of “paper news”.

The recent news about our various newspapers is rather sombre: Even The Toronto Star is losing money; CanWest/National Post is tethering on bankruptcy; and the Toronto Sun is bleeding red ink. Canadian book publishers have had a rough time the last several years; as Roy McSkimming delineated in his book The Perilous Trade. Newspapers –and to a lesser degree, mews magazines –are facing a dual struggle: the recession that affects all business, and more seriously, the technological and social change that the internet has wrought. The younger, multitasking, instant gratification generation is not inclined to read news in dept; they would rather receive it on their IPods and Blackberrys. The older generation, like me, that prefers newspapers to the computer for reading, usually wants in-dept analysis in the comfort of their easy chair. But, newscasts are everywhere; on the radio, TV, internet – instant and superficial – just the way our harried, instantaneous society wants it. The “news” part of newspapers has lost its raison d’être.

However, there is still a valid and useful role for the traditional news media, including magazines. One example of how a publication can rejuvenate itself is Maclean’s, which has succeeded so well that the Time Magazine has now withdrawn from the Canadian market, after many more than fifty years of publishing a Canadian edition.

The possible demise of the National Post and the Toronto Sun will not be mourned by many. The Post was a testimony and an expression of Conrad Black’s megalomania, and I could not understand the rationale for Izzy Asper’s purchase of the stinker from Black, other than the political clout and “status” it might have conferred on him at the time. In his book IZZY, Peter Newman put it most succinctly: “The first 50 percent (of The Post) cost Izzy $ 100 million; the second 50 percent went for$ 1.00. He paid too much both times”(p.302,).

Whether a display by the Aspers of miscast loyalty or just plain folly, it is ironic that Mr Black still writes a column in the Post, even offering an “interview” with himself in his prison home!

These times will test the mettle of all publications, and in this Darwinian economic struggle, only the fittest will survive. Toronto cannot support four newspapers any longer, and the country does not need two national dailies. I will wager that when the dust settles on this imbroglio, only two papers will still be standing: The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star.