Death of the Newspaper?

A politician is a guy who is generous with other people's money, courageous with other people's lives and eloquent with other people's words. A journalist is much the same, except that he/she usually has enough talent to scribble the words.

With the threatened demise of numerous British and American papers in the current recession, the politicised journalist (is there any other kind?) has become more repulsive than ever before, if that were possible. Two of my favourite hate figures Polly Toynbee of "The Guardian" and Johann Hari of "The Independent" have recently written equally ludicrous articles lamenting the downfall of the printed media as advertisers go elsewhere or stop advertising altogether. As you might expect from these two worthies, their remedies involve extorting yet more money from the ever-luckless taxpayer.

Obviously journalists want money spent on newspapers, just as admirals want more aircraft carriers and truck operators want cheaper gas. But even by the low standards of special pleading and pork barrel politics Toynbee and Hari's appeals were exceptionally crass.

Johann Hari's more laughable idea was that students should be compelled to subscribe to a newspaper as part of the condition for being on a college course. He imported this idea from some American philantropist who was concerned about the impending mass extinction of the major US newspapers and, like any politician, was prepared to be extra-generous with other people's money. This compulsory subscription would not only support endangered titles, but encourage the spread of general world knowledge among future graduates, who are woefully ignorant on many aspects of public life.

Obviously the only printable repost to such an idea, both from students and the rest of the population, would be something like "Go jump in a vat of acid". Why should anyone be forced to buy something which no one wants to buy voluntarily? Why should low-income students be singled out for this honour? And even if students were compelled to subscribe to a newspaper, how many would read it, or read anything beyond the sports and cartoon pages? And why should anyone be forced to buy something which everyone on the planet can read for free on the Internet?

Polly's slightly less laughable idea focused on supporting local newspapers and their allegedly essential role in facilitating local democracy. Numerous local councils spend small fortunes producing glossy magazines to tell the hapless local taxpayers how they are pouring their money down the toilet. The actual readership of these magazines is not known; unlike commercial papers, no one needs to measure readership to justify their existence or to put a reasonable price on advertising rates. But it is unlikely to be larger than three figures for each publication.

One of her ideas is that this visibly wasted expenditure should be re-directed into supporting local newspapers, perhaps via funding mechanisms such as charitable trusts. Again, my only charitable reaction is "Jump in an acid vat, Polly". Why should my hard-earned money be squandered either on a politicians' propaganda sheet or a dying local rag which can't support itself? Sadly, as this is a family blog, I can't quote all the riotously funny and indescribably obscene abuse heaped on Polly by various bloggers such as "The Devil's Kitchen".

And if having Polly in print and on the Internet is not appalling enough, there she was on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news peddling exactly the same drivel at the licence payer's expense. Being a newspaper columnist is a great way of getting access to other media and thus even greater exposure for your fatuous opinions. It really is a case of "Unto him that hath much, much shall be given", though not in the Biblical sense.

To prove that lousy ideas know no language barriers, the Sarkozy regime in France are proposing to pay for a year's newspaper subscription for all 18 year olds. Given that France has much better broadband provision than Britain, with super-fast connections piping hi-def TV to your plasma TV/supersize computer display, this sounds like a super-fast non-starter. I can read "Le Monde", "Le Figaro", etc on line any time I want. In fact "Le Figaro" (see www.lefigaro.fr ) is happy to send a daily newsletter to anyone on earth, even to a "rostbif" like me. So I get "La lettre d'info du Figaro" in my inbox each day. If your high school French is up to it, sign on for free for a language refresher.

You can see what local papers are up against in sheer value for money terms. My mobile broadband connection costs £8.20 ($12.00) per month (I abandoned the AOL landline link months ago). For that I get every newspaper on the planet in every language, hundreds of superb magazines on every conceivable topic, (all hosting writers far better than Toynbee and Hari), free email, free multiple libraries (see www.refdesk.com to name only one) and only God knows how many awesome databases, such as the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).On the lighter side there's instant shopping from Amazon and thousands of other providers, free music from www.Spotify.com (which is like having an Ipod the size of a suitcase - never buy a CD or MP3 again), video from countless sites, internet radio from 6,000 stations....the list goes on and on.

And I don't even have to get out of bed to obtain any of these goodies. With my netbook and mobile broadband dongle, surfing in bed is one of the little pleasures of modern life.

Our local "daily" rag, the "Evening Post", is published only on five days a week. In a month of 30 days, that is 22 issues at 40 pence per day....say £8.80. So-called "serious" national newspapers, filled with the sort of garbage peddled by Toynbee and Hari, cost twice as much per day. Comparing the "Evening Post", or any other "newspaper", to my internet link is like comparing a horse-and-buggy to a state of the art BMW. I'm afraid the old faithful nag is being retired to the knacker's yard. The difference is that some people actually want to use a horse and buggy on special occasions.

Unlike hundreds of local British papers, the "Post" is not going bust immediately, but it is being reduced to two issues a week from later in 2009. As the weekly "Reading Chronicle" is much fatter and more marketing-savvy (for example, it produces a Polish edition for the thousands of recent arrivals in town), how long a twice-weekly Post will survive is anyone's guess, especially once it loses its frequent publication edge over the "Chronicle".

It is obviously not just the technological gap between print and electronic media. It is displacement time; time spent sampling the internet is time not spent reading dead tree media. After a while you lose the habit and taste for reading traditional newspapers.

But all this is horribly selfish and inconsiderate, you cry. How can we ignore all the people who don't have Internet access and rely on the local paper for local news? Well, obviously the printed media themselves aren't much use to the 15 to 20 per cent of adult citizens who are wholly or partly illiterate. In fact sites like the brilliant www.spotify.com point one possible way to a post-literate future. At present Spotify is content merely to provide truckloads of free music in every conceivable genre from Janacek to Glenn Miller to children's nursery songs to U2. (Sorry, US readers, it is only available in certain European countries as yet). But it can obviously deliver every kind of audio material with equal ease; news broadcasts, documentaries, lectures, drama, "audio books" and much more.

The professed concern of Toynbee and Hari for local or national democracy if newspapers die is particularly laughable, given that their newspapers represent only a small minority of the British public. So-called serious papers like the "Guardian" and "Independent" are outsold 15 to 1 by the tit-and-bum titles like "The Sun". As Toynbee herself told me, when I emailed her in response to one exceptionally idiotic piece she had written: "We need a better quality public in this country". Obviously.....we need far more people who agree with La Toynbee. The true "De haut en bas" voice of the modern secular atheist.

Hari protested that traditional news-gathering journalism is very expensive and has been supported only by cross-subsidies of various kinds, e.g. from traditional advertisers. Seeing the vitality of on-line bloggers, some of whom make a good living from the Internet, and the fact that some bloggers have broken important stories which the traditional reporters have missed, I am not losing any sleep over the possible demise of the traditional hack.

Newspapers, like it or not, are only one small and disposable piece of the modern democratic jigsaw. Large numbers of people are going to lose out on local and national democratic access if they don't use the Internet, or can't read the local paper, or don't go to council meetings or never approach their local councillor or Member of Parliament.... Actual direct observation of council meetings and direct contact with local politicians costs nothing and is open to every one rich or poor, literate or illiterate.

Part of my joy at seeing the discomfort of Toynbee and Hari is that these two obviously sense that the days of influence of highly placed commentators like them are nearly over. The Internet gives unprecented open access to a worldwide audience to everyone with an opinion.

As I noted in an earlier blog, there are still horses around in present day Britain. But they play an utterly different role in the economy to that they enjoyed 100 years ago. One of the pleasures of studying the old Reading street directories in our local library is the sight of the long-extinct businesses who provided essential services in the early 20th century. Horse traders, blacksmths and suppliers of horse fodder and harnesses share the pages with the early car dealers who would soon replace them. The horse economy is important less than 40 miles west of Reading. In the Lambourn area, there is a major centre of race horse training and breeding. A major infrastructure, including a very specialised horse hospital, thrives in its support - though of course the horsie folk use Range Rovers and Volvo and Mercedes estate cars for everyday transport.

In the same way printed material will thrive in a different way in future. Our local newsagents shelves groan under the weight of traditional dead tree magazines covering hundreds of specialised interests. The "newspapers" stand is an isolated island which could be replaced in a few years by other merchandise with few people noticing or greatly caring. With the super-netbooks of the near future, who will bother to buy a newspaper even to read on the daily commute to London? Already the express coaches from Reading Station to Heathrow Airport boast free wi-fi. Those travellers are already more interested in continuos Web access. Most of the rest of us will soon follow them.