If you ever wondered why the LA Times is having so much trouble online or why its product is fading so quickly, look no further than the editorial board.
In a shocking editorial the Times wrote, “many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden.”
Read that again.
No good publisher honestly believes that. No sane person honestly believes that. I’m confident, however that the people at Tribune Co. and the Times honestly believe that.
Which is, of course, why a company with two of the best newspapers in the country has managed to marginalize two once great publications, while providing an embarrassing Web product. Newspapers have been declining for decades, and the Internet is probably the one thing that can save newspapers.
Newspapers are hampered by several fundamental flaws. The whole newspaper model doesn’t fit a lot of people’s lives anymore as I wrote about yesterday. That doesn’t mean news or information doesn’t fit their lives, but the fundamental product that is a newspaper no longer works for millions of Americans.
The delivery and printing costs are the biggest single cost a newspaper incurs. With populations further dispersing from city centers, the costs only rise. Quickly rising gas prices don’t help either.
None of those concerns apply to the Web. The Web can delivery content far cheaper to an audience anywhere in the world. It can also deliver content in the ways that people actually want to consume it.
I still read the papers I grew up reading on the Web. Without www.cleveland.com, I wouldn’t be able to get The Plain Dealer. That’s ad dollars they would never be able to get otherwise from someone living in Virginia.
Back on topic:
But Google now is doing yet another thing that’s bound to get under journalists’ skin. This month, it announced plans to let people and organizations comment on the stories written about them. For example, if The Times ran another exposé on conflicts of interest within the Food and Drug Administration’s drug-approval process, Google News would provide a forum for the FDA and any researchers or drug manufacturers implicated in the story to respond, unedited.
Imagine how terrible a world it would be to live in where people got to respond to newspaper stories. Imagine a world where people could rebut what people write about them, try to correct their errors or explain why they did what. Imagine, if you can, a world where everyday readers can comment on stories.
No no no! That is too frightening a world for anyone to imagine. The Times could easily trump Google by allowing people to comment on their stories at www.latimes.com, like The Washington Post does. They have chosen not to do that.
They can further respond back to any response from the FDA or whomever else if they deem the comment to have been factually incorrect. It’s two-way communication. I hope Google allows for papers and commenters to have a back and forth discussion, because readers would really benefit.
But all of this fear could have been avoided years ago if the Times embraced two-way communication like a lot of newspapers. If you’re going to allow readers to comment on your stories, you should be willing to comment back to them. That’s what two-way communication is all about. Now, if Google doesn’t allow for a paper like the Times to respond to a FDA response to the original article, Google will clearly be doing everyone a disservice.
But in the end, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Newspapers make a lot of mistakes, largely due to shrinking staffs and increased output expectations. Comments on stories are a great way to get the truth out and alert editors that mistakes have been made.
Let it all shine through. What I sense from the Times, however, is that they don’t want people commenting or questioning their stories.
It’s crazy to think that the Times once competed against The New York Times and The Washington Post. My, those days have sure passed us by.
