How Newspaper Can Survive

Newspaper companies need to turn the tide and turn it fast if they want to stay in business at all. It’s time to go on the offensive and renovate their businesses around the changing needs and demands of their customers. The difficulty lies in that much of their future may not involve paper, and the industry is having a hard time changing its name.

Larry Kramer denkt auf The Daily Beast über die Zukunft der Zeitung nach und bemüht dabei den Vergleich mit der Eisenbahn-Industrie bei der Einführung des Flugzeugs. Sein Credo: Es geht um Fortbewegung, nicht um Schienen. Deshalb schlägt er vor:

The newspaper companies need to develop business models that support newsrooms, not newspapers. And it’s likely going to be the private companies who don’t have to satisfy the public need for improved quarterly earnings that can lead the charge. They have to envision what the news business will look like in the future and build business models that support that, without the added burden of supporting a delivery system most users don’t care about. And they have to invest heavily in news gathering and news dissemination. The goals are both speed and context. The newsroom has to be part CNN Headline News and part The Economist.