The specter of a recession certainly won’t help the journalism job market, but 2008 has already been bleak for the newspaper industry.

Graphicdesignr.net is reporting that there have already been more than 1,000 job cuts for the industry in the first two months of 2008. That’s a sharp increase from 2007. Check out the Google Map they have put together detailing where the job cuts have been.

On average more than 20 newspaper jobs are cut a day, and most newspaper companies are in a hiring freeze. The Northeast, Midwest and California are all getting hammered right now, but people still want to be informed.

Increasingly, people are turning to non-MSM sources to get news. Why? Because the MSM is contracting and covering issues that matter to readers less and less. The Web has allowed niche Web sites to flourish, while offering users a much more micro look at the world.

If newspapers were struggling mightily in good times, imagine how bleak the industry might get in 2008. Now is not the time for newspaper to bunker down, however. Good or bad economic news, change is needed at newspapers across the country.

Simply cutting positions will not turn newspapers around. In fact, job cuts will only make newspapers a less viable product for consumers. The fundamental product has to change.

Newspapers need to view themselves as platform-agnostic news agencies with compelling Web, mobile and print products. Each product should have a strong synergy with the others. None of the products should ever be a duplication of another.

The era of the newspaper being the primary way Americans are informed is over. The Web — and its mobile sidekick — are now the bearers of that torch. Print products should concentrate on what the medium can do best — provide second-day analysis pieces and striking feature writing.

Why am I still seeing newspapers that are one, two and three inches thick, filled with old news? Printed products should be much leaner, filled with only the content that makes sense for a print product to have. Newspapers should try to mimic the model The Economist has found success with.

The Economist is becoming more and more popular in the U.S. because it provides better analysis pieces than Time, Newsweek or U.S. News and World Report. The Economist has no pretensions about reporting news before everyone else. It knows exactly its niche, and it is a product that works beautifully in print.

It’s simply a better print product than a Web product, but the magazine does have a nice Web site nonetheless. That’s what print products need to be — a product that simply works better in print than in any other medium.

Most newspapers are the exact opposite.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under State of journalism, jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.