Karin Dryhurst

The Interwebs Killed My Newspaper

Media observers again touted claims this week that the Internet means a death sentence for newspapers.

A study from a university in England argues that the declining revenue and online readership of Finnish daily Taloussanomat, which moved to online-only in 2007, provides evidence that newspapers should continue to publish in print.

The Guardian cites this case study and declining online readership at SeattlePI.com, which lost 20 percent of its page views in the week after The Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped the presses.

And media insider blog FishbowlNY applies the Finnish case to The New York Times, saying the Times “needs to do all it can to continue producing a print product.”

Taking newspapers off the stands did not cause online readers to walk away. A lack of original content did.

Both Taloussanomat and the P-I paired their online transitions with drastic cuts to their newsrooms (80 percent in the Seattle case). The Columbia Journalism Review points out that 80 percent of stories at Taloussanomat came from news agencies and many focused on celebrity gossip. The CJR blames this on journalists strapped to their computers updating the site rather than out reporting.

Also, the comparison between Taloussanomat and the Times fails. The Finnish paper had been around for 10 years prior to its transition, compared to the more than 150-year history and reputation of the Times.

Nielson Online ranked the Times as the top newspaper site in January with more than 20 million unique visitors. Somehow I don’t foresee these readers going elsewhere if the Times were to stop publishing a print edition tomorrow—unless they cut 80 percent of their staff and only covered AP stories.

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Posted at 12:25 PM, Apr 17, 2009 in Media
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