Did Newspapers Fail the American Public?

Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab, does not hold back in his blistering appraisal of the newspaper industry in his post, "The Nichepaper and the Failure of the Fourth Estate," on the Harvard Business Publishing site. He argues that nichepapers -- think Talking Points Memo and The HuffingtonPost -- are the 21st century expression of newspapers. The discussion is part of an earlier post about Haque's Nichepaper Manifesto, which tackles the controversial paid-content debate. In the Nichepaper Manifesto he writes:

Journalists didn't make 20th century newspapers profitable -- readers did. Twentieth century newspapers were never supernormally profitable because of what they wrote: it was the natural monopoly dynamics of classifieds that fueled massive margins.

In the 21st century, it's time, again for newspapers to learn how to profit with stakeholders -- instead of extracting profits from them. The 21st century's great challenge isn't selling the same old "product" better: it's learning to make radically better stuff in the first place.

In the post about the Fourth Estate, he discusses whether newspapers have actually served the public interest: "Almost no one chronicled Wall Street's excesses. Almost no one kept watch over Washington's capture. Almost no one defended the swelling ranks of the vulnerable. Those few that did were marginalized -- instead of lionized -- by the industry itself."

But that's not the only indictment Haque places at the feet of the newspaper industry:

Where was the fourth estate when our political, economic, and social institutions were being systematically dismantled? What has happened to our economy parallels what Mugabe did to Zimbabwe. Was the fourth estate asleep while this happened? Like other power brokers, it was negligent -- and, perhaps worse, complicit.

If newspapers had protected the public interest like they were meant to, they would be more profitable. Everyone would be better off today -- including newspapers -- if newspapers had chronicled this transfer of value. Yet, by failing to protect the public interest, they helped create the conditions for the transfer of value away from people who do stuff, to people who speculate on stuff.

These are the poor choices of management, who committed strategic seppuku by trading near-term profit for long-run prosperity. Newspapers are full of awesome journalists who are deeply ethical people who chose journalism exactly because they want to do meaningful stuff that matters. But newspaper management -- like the management of nearly every other industry under the sun -- traded tomorrow for today. And that's the problem that nichepapers -- just part of a larger generation of "M" organizations -- are solving.

If you get past the comparison to Zimbawe's President Robert Mugabe, Haque makes provocative observations about the performance of newspapers. American society is being redefined on every level because of the economy, along with cultural, geographic and class-related shifts. If newspapers seek to have the impact of a vibrant 21st century outlet, they need to let go of the mothballed past. They have to answer hard questions that hurt:

What will be the long-term implications of layoffs that focused on stopping the red ink on the ledgers rather than answering the desperate need to expand knowledge in our communities? Have newspapers undervalued the power of investigative journalism by not allocating people and time to relentlessly examine the underbelly of what happens in city and state government? Have newspapers resisted soliciting Web developers to help re-imagine how information is exchanged with the public? Is sustaining the traditional newsroom more important than serving readers themselves? And if solid journalism is about a commitment to pursue fair reporting, are newsrooms equally committed to practicing innovation, not as a trendy business concept, but as a social responsibility?

Everyone may not agree with all of Haque's conclusions, but I say it is foolhardy to ignore them.


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