The internet doesn't kill newspapers, newspapers kill newspapers

Editorial

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

What is this "internet"
you speak of?

Sales of printed news media is dropping like a stone worldwide.  Newspapers are getting thinner and thinner at the same time as the content is becoming less and less relevant in a world that increasingly gets its news as it happens or shortly thereafter.

At the same time, print publishers and editors seem to be in complete denial, muttering about the smell of paper, the convenience, the history.  "The internet is a fad!" was the rallying cry of print people until very recently.

True, when I sniff my computer screen or my cell phone, they don't smell like pulped dead tree.  However, I would argue that online news is now far more convenient than print.  In the palm of my hand I have access to the internet, which does not seem to be a fad after all, and to the incredible wealth of constantly updating information from a huge multitude of sources that it provides.  I can fact check that information, and I can get any number of different perspectives on it, almost instantly.

Handy.

Newspaper publishers and editors only have themselves to blame for the decline in their niche market.  The world has changed.  People who are in the news business should be the first to notice that, not the last.  Newspapers are killing themselves by not adapting.  Blaming us online folks for being smart enough to step up to the plate is opaque folly.

Various pundits who are employed by heavily-invested-in-print media outlets have suggested it is almost impossible to break through the overwhelming amount of information available on the internet enough to create a viable presence.

To that I reply: www.pinchercreekvoice.com

The Pincher Creek Voice was envisioned as a hyper-local news site.  To our surprise, it turned out there was a regional hunger for the product we put out.  In fact, people are learning about our little community from all over world via this website.  In big numbers.

When we began we decided to completely re-think how news is presented, embracing the many lessons of the past while deliberately challenging some of the basic rules of thumb applied to print journalism, particularly those that revolved around space issues.

One picture tells a story, yes.  Many pictures often do a better job of telling the whole story.  Video is often far more interesting than the forced observations of an outside observer.  If a story can be told in 100 words, great.  If it takes a 1000, why not?

If it's happening right now, why not tell people right now?  If someone is missing right now, let's get to finding them right now.  If the highway is closed because of...  well, you get what I mean.

In a year this little publication has grown to over 7000 unique readers a month.  We get close to 1200 pageviews a day.  More if there's a breaking story.  Less if there isn't and it's a Sunday.  In a market with about 7000 potential readers, tops, of all ages.  In a market where a significant portion of that possible readership is past retirement age and isn't into this "Internet fad".  In a market where "internet resistance" is particularly high.

Two people did it, right here, right now, with a lot of help.  Only one of us is full-time.  As an enterprise, we're coming perilously close to making a profit going into our second year of publication.  We invested time, know-how, supplies, computer equipment, and camera gear.  Almost nothing, compared to the start-up costs of most businesses.  Except for the time of course.  There's been a lot of that spent.

We salute the spirit of the guy that pulled his wagon into town over a hundred years ago and said "This town could use a decent newspaper".

If we can do it, with limited resources, from an office nestled up against the kitchen fridge...

We embraced Facebook and Twitter from the beginning.  It's paid off, over and over again.  We immediately adopted longer forms of journalism where appropriate.  Our starting point is the assumption that people want to know more, not less.

We refuse to reduce the news to quippy bite sized portions.  What we call a headline others call "coverage".

We say "and" at every opportunity instead of "or" or "but..."

Nothing ever gets rejected because we "haven't got the space".  Yes, sometimes things do get rejected, but that is never the reason.

People read us in Pincher Creek, Piikani, Fort MacMurray, Lethbridge, Edmonton, Moscow, California, High River, Japan, Australia, Denver, Poland... in significant numbers.  We're working on Cowley and Lundbreck.

Time to reconsider, print folks.

Nah, take your time...

Online news is not a future that is coming.  It's the present.

The present. That's news.  The rest is history.  We do that too.