When I was a kid, I had a dog. The dog’s name was Jimmy. Each afternoon, he’d hear me coming up the driveway home from school and he’d race out the front to meet me, scraping his wet old tongue all over my face. Sniffing my crotch. Some days, that old guy’d get so excited on account of me being home, he’d pee all over the exposed aggregate driveway.
One afternoon, Jimmy wasn’t in the driveway to meet me. Mum and I, we ran all over the goddam house, looking for him. It was me who found Jimmy, rolled on his back in the garden, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, phlegm and blood pouring from his nose and eyes.
Jimmy had eaten rat poison some bright nut of a neighbor had decided to put out a little too close to our fence line.
The vet tugged up the legs of his flared trousers and bent down to talk to me, so as we were on eye level. “Jimmy’s got some problems with his brain, Geoffrey, and even if we can save his life, the hopes of him ever being like the Jimmy you love are slim. Probably best, son, if we stop Jimmy’s struggle and let him rest peacefully.”
My little guy fists were red raw that night because I banged them so hard on the lino floor of the surgery. I never saw Jimmy again.
And it’s funny how things that happen to you when you’re a kid can fashion the way you view all sorts of things when you’re a man.
While I was eating my Coco Pops this morning, something I read on Crikey, reminded me of old Jimmy. Like Jimmy, print is dying. It’s put its curious, whiskered snout too far under the fence and sucked back a truckload of rat poison. And it’s never going to be the same: “media analysts Goldman Sachs JB Were claiming dramatic falls in classified advertising in Fairfax’s traditional metro papers for December.” Falls were reported in all of Fairfax’s classifieds including motor, real estate and employment.
Problem is, unlike my sage and compassionate vet with the flares and lino, those with the say-so in media empires like Fairfax are not prepared to put print gently to sleep. They’ve whacked it on a respirator, and pumped a bunch of chemicals in its bloodstream in the hope of its survival. Even if it manages to live, it’s gonna have major spasticity in its arms and legs and it won’t be able to control its need to defecate. It’ll never be like the print we once loved.
It should be laid to rest peacefully.
Moral of the story is that, a few months after Jimmy passed away, Mum and Dad bought me a new dog. Name was Taffy. Truth is, I actually liked Taffy a bit more than Jimmy. Taffy was energetic and a bit brighter. I taught him to beg and sit and he even managed to catch the mice that came into our kitchen through a crack in the wall in winter. Plus, Taffy still met me in the driveway each arvo — but he never once sniffed my crotch or pissed on the exposed aggregate.
Geoff Jennings worked at Fairfax Digital and Realestate.com.au before starting his own company Online Recruitment. He is a blogger in the online recruitment field, with a knowledge of media advertising.
What a cracker of a story. Not everything has to be obvious to be compelling. I guess print had better start making their last wishes known, getting things in order and all that. Their symptoms are terminal.
Truth is, Pete, newspapers won’t be picked up by a “large percentage of the population” for very much longer. That’s because, due to dwindling interest from advertisers, they will not have the funds necessary for production. Dudes like you who are trying to hold tight to what happened in the past, your knuckles are getting whiter by the minute.
There’s a new dog in town. His name’s Taffy.
Please don’t print anything by this guy ever again.
Thanks.
Agree Tom. I think newspapers will (and are) becoming more specialised.
But, I think the distractibility of the web, and the information overload, will lead people to seek out print as well … where they can focus and not get distracted. I find it’s much more relaxing to read a paper in print than online. Research has also found that the use of paper has risen dramatically due to the web, as people like to print out commentary they find online, and read it (alone) and ponder it instead of clicking elsewhere on the screen. As I said, both mediums have their strengths and weaknesses.
They may not be dead, but they are dying. Look at the revenue forecasts.
quote from The Oz
AUSTRALIAN newspapers would lose up to $1 billion in revenue in the next four years as classified advertising continued to migrate online.
EL&C Bailleau stockbrokers research head Ivor Ries told the Future of Journalism conference in Melbourne Australia’s main newspaper companies had lost $450 million in classified advertising revenue in the past four years.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24712279-7582,00.html
Look at US & Oz papers closing or cutting staff. Stagnation. Next step is death.
Newspapers will never die. For much the same reason as books won’t. Reports of declining circulations are grossly exaggerated. After decades of declines, the World Association of Newspapers noted a significant turn-around in 2004. Since then, circulation has continued to rise, with an overall increase of 9.4 per cent over the last five years. The biggest increases are in emerging economies such as China and India. Newspaper doomsayers should not assume that we will follow in the footsteps of the UK and the US (which have had large declines across most categories of newspapers). In these countries, the traditional publishing companies do not have leading news websites; in Australia they dominate the online news field. Also, there needs to be a distinction between different categories of newspapers. We are seeing declines in the middle-of-the-road dailies. Those showing growth are those with clearly defined markets, and very targeted. The Australian Financial Review, for example, and, yes, The Australian. And local community newspapers are burgeoning.
As for the migration of advertising, readers are not deserting newspapers at anything approaching the rate of advertisers. One has to question the role of media buyers at advertising agencies driving advertising to the internet despite high numbers of consumers for newspapers. Perhaps those promoting the view of newspapers’ imminent demise (including media and journalism academics) are influencing this migration of advertising!
What would be more helpful in the debate on the future of newspapers, would be to look at the unique qualities and properties of both mediums: print and web.