From Romanesko letters: There are any number of ideas for coping with this problem, some of which will be successful -- examples include a Web news presence that reflects the abilities of the Web instead of simply putting ink-on-paper stories on screens; targeted marketing and niche products -- and some that would be bottom-line unfriendly but enhance our current product -- mandating doorstep delivery, for example. The weakest point in our production and distribution chain is that we expect the reader to walk to the street at 5:30 a.m. to get our product. That is just arrogance.
Journalists can play an important part in the process of saving the news business, let alone newspapers, but we need to understand that there has rarely been a link between higher quality and circulation. The most famous example where there was is probably that the New York Times turned away advertising for news in World War II and surpassed the Herald Tribune, which did not. But that was in a one-on-one competitive situation over the country's most elite market -- upmarket New York City. There were four or five New York dailies of lesser quality that were as large or larger than either the Times or the Herald Tribune, but did not circulate among the chattering classes. Yes, they ultimately died as well, but the Herald Tribune was still a quality newspaper when it succumbed.
The problem for journalists is that most people who care about quality journalism (at least, over 30) already take a paper, even though they may be extremely disappointed with it. They may take the Times or the Journal over the Dacron Republican Democrat, but they take something; and lots of them take the Dacron paper because they live in Dacron. They think it is junk, but they buy it anyway because they are newspaper readers and care about journalism.
Letter in full.
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