‘Bark at the dark:’ Media boss says old days ain’t coming back
June 11th, 2008 by Wayne Garcia in The Business of MSMWilliam Dean Singleton, whose media company owns such papers as the Denver Post, recently gave a brutally frank assessment of the current state of print journalism and its failed business model in a speech in Sweden. (Yes, the same Dean Singleton who referred to Barack Obama as “Obama bin Laden.” Yes, the same Dean Singleton who is a Friend O’ Bush. And yes, the same man the NYT once called “the industry’s leading skinflint” who is now viewed in a more favorable light and is chairman of the AP.)
The upshot: 19 of top 50 newspapers are losing money, and in the future, there will be only two types of newspapers in the U.S. — the quick and the dead.
From his speech (as reported in BusinessWeek):
Too many whining editors, reporters and newspaper unions continue to bark at the dark, thinking their barks will make the night go away. They fondly remember the past as if it will suddenly re-appear and the staffing in newsrooms will suddenly begin to grow again.
Well, as a former journalist, I also wish for the past, but it’s not coming back. The printed space allocated to news and newsroom staffing levels will continue to decline, so it’s time to get over it and move to a print model that matches the reality of a changing business.
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