Print media looks for new business models

In an age where the death of print journalism is being heralded as all but inevitable, the people who run publications are having to get creative about the way they do business.

As subscribers and advertising dollars dwindle and revenues fall, organizations are no longer able to rely on their standard operating procedures. An innovative new business model must be created.

One way that owners have tried to stay afloat is by laying off employees and enforcing strong cut backs.

The Athens Banner Herald, like the rest of the nation, has had to try to make up for lost advertising revenue.

“In the past year we had about a 10 percent staff reduction, which in real numbers is four people,” says Melissa Hanna, executive editor of the paper.

While this does immediately save money, in the long run it is reducing quality. Fewer reporters means less time spent on each story, and a smaller budget restricts the scope of journalism.

“When you reduce your writing staff, your editing staff, you cover less, you cover not as well,” says Conrad Fink, professor of newspaper management and journalism ethics at the University of Georgia, “but it’s necessary because these newspapers are attempting to preserve profit and without profit they go out of business.”

For a while it looked like the advertising revenue from websites would support the industry, or at least make the sites profitable, but with the decline in money spent on advertising because of the recession, this is not holding up. Even if the downturn is temporary, an industry of this magnitude cannot rely on one source of revenue.

While nearly all news sites are free and ad supported, a few, such as the Wall Street Journal, require subscriptions to view their content. But with so much content available for free, it can be difficult to get consumers to pay for a monthly subscription, especially when they usually only want to read one article. Many readers do not want to get locked into a single publication for their news.

An alternative to the subscription model is to start charging micropayments to view online content. Many believe that readers would be willing to pay for content if it was cheap and easy.

“It depends on how cheap it is,” said Tien Phan, a third-year Marketing and Advertising major at the University of Georgia.

Phan explained that if the articles were priced comparably to a song on Itunes, she probably would not pay, but if they were a fraction of that price she would. She had other concerns about eliminating free content on media websites as well.

“If they make it too expensive it might discourage people from reading,” Phan said.

The Wall Street Journal plans to begin charging micropayments this fall for readers who want to read an article but are uninterested in subscribing to the publication, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Some have suggested a government supported media, but others believe this lack of separation between government and media is too dangerous. If the government controls the information we are given, that eliminates one of the major checks in our democratic system.

“Once you take money from someone you become beholden to them,” says Fink.

Economist Dean Baker has proposed the use of “artistic freedom vouchers,” according to an article by the Nieman Journalism Lab. Under this plan, every adult in the country would get a $100 government voucher which they could then transfer to any person or company putting new intellectual property into the public domain. Because the citizens of America are the ones deciding where the money goes, this plan allows the government to support the media without gaining total control over it.

However, there are certainly problems with this plan as well, such as the expense to our government. Also, it has the potential to lead to all new intellectual property coming from a small, select group of people. Popular publications might receive enough to support themselves, while less popular, but no less important, publications could not receive enough to get by.

Paste, an Atlanta-based music and lifestyle magazine, tried a tactic most people never expected to see. They launched a campaign this summer called “Save Paste,” in which they asked readers to donate to the publication to keep it from having to shut down. In addition to asking for donations, Paste also auctioned off memorabilia and other merchandise.

While the campaign may have saved the publication for the time being, this is probably not a viable option for most publications- unless, like Paste, they have a niche in the market and loyal readers.