SHAWVILLE, QUEBEC | Modern technological advances are the constant talk in the newspaper industry, if "industry" is still the right word. We are using a couple of devices at our community papers in West Quebec, and they are phenomenally useful.

For example, of course we all use e-mail and it is wonderful. But it is getting dated, with so many neo-spammers using it to sell, not to mention the e-pandemic of viruses and worms slopping around the world. A world-wide network collapse could come at any time. Obama says so.

However, in our papers we use a similar tool which lets the user contact a person, anywhere in the world (pretty well anywhere), merely with the time it takes to punch in a code of about ten numbers. That's quick, but best of all, the contact is direct; we actually speak directly to the person we want. We ask questions, respond with new questions, make asides, tell jokes, and ramble, all in real time. Yes, wow! The telephone takes the shine off e-mail, although e-mail will continue being useful for a long time yet.

A second sensational product we use is the display device we sell or give our subscribers. It carries our entire product -- all the stories, the research, the photos and graphs, interviews, portraits, analysis, and sports play-by-play, plus all the advertising, including classifieds and public notices.

Not only does this display device have great capacity, it is exceptionally clear and easy to read, not back-lit or too bright. It can be marked on with a pen to register questions or interests. And it is incredibly portable; it can be folded or rolled up, stuffed inside a shoe, even, or used to clean windows. Being non electrical it can be used outside -- or in the bath. And it's cheap. Paper is recyclable, non-polluting, and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Quite the product.

Yes, the telephone and paper have yet to be exceeded by modern technology, although they are certainly being added-to. They're no longer the only game in the industry. Which is true for the newspaper industry itself. No new media has co-opted all of newspapers' benefits, but they have certainly added to our industry's reach and services.

However, new media have also made our share of the pie smaller. Our classifieds have been hammered by free web sites. But there is room for us to push out and take back more of the old slice, and it's being done. Newspapers' websites and push services are rapidly expanding, although revenues can't quite match paper.

The final advantage newspaper have is our industry's enormous depth. Newspapers have been around for a long time; they have magnificent archives and valuable information reservoirs. These strengthen our services and they can be marketed directly, by selling access.

This final advantage, depth, gives us our final tactic: to make the pie as a whole richer. Our share may be smaller but our profit will not decrease proportionally.

If we maximize the benefits of our depth, we outstrip the competition, all of them, because they can't or won't spend enough to set up a news gathering, verifying, and editing network, worthy of competing with newspapers. Blogs have become white noise, not a news media. Commercial blogs and websites often have false names and pretenses, and their number is growing. Our credibility comes with our depth.

Real newspapers have no competition

You've heard this before. Write better news; dig up the real news, not giant-cheque photo stories. Controversy, curiosity, concern . . . and doubt, plenty of doubt. There is a newspaper recognized for these qualities, with absolutely stunning writers at work, nothing that we community papers can afford, but definitely what we community papers can aim towards. That paper sells around the world and has 155,000 subscribers who pay about $200 per year.

That's right, the Guardian chain in Britain puts out a weekly with the best of its members, plus Le Monde and the Washington Post. I have no idea of their advertising revenues, but they have constant promotions about education, language training, NGOs, etc. But with a subscription income of $31 million in personal cheques per year, it's hard to say that good journalism, editing, and design don't pay off.

People obviously will pay for real journalism, real newspapers.

Are we offering them the real thing, or just more of what they don't want, but electronically?

---

Copyright © 2009 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/06.09