Bad Business Models

Just like General Motors, American newspapers have failed to significantly change their business model as they sink into oblivion, a fact noted in recent years by countless numbers of pundits, journalism professors and business experts.

Tied to dirty and unsustainable production methods--paper, ink, fossil fuel for delivery—most hard-copy newspapers have apparently made the decision to continue to print until their last subscriber dies, shifting resources away from their online sites, which obviously represent their future. Like GM’s fundamental error to build shoddy, gas guzzlers as the world ran out of oil, it’s baffling. It’s no surprise some politicians have begun a discussion about a newspaper bailout.

The new newspaper is online, and it has a leaner and more productive staff. It counts on stringers, citizen journalists and government institutions to provide factual and sometimes mundane facts of our culture, from marriage records to monthly tax revenue reports to school board decisions. It employs enterprise reporters, who have infinite space to produce in-depth stories and then participate in a dialogue with their readers. It uses video, audio, images and interactive graphics to tell stories.

But, more importantly, the new newspaper, if it strives for viability, exposes and excludes the illogical right-wing rhetoric that continues to pervade virtually every media outlet in the country, from Fox News to The Washington Post, from CNN to the Los Angeles Times. Here, again, it becomes GM-like obvious: the shrinking demographics of the Republican Party make the right-wing mantra non-profitable in the future. The neoconservative agenda of former President George Bush was completely repudiated as an utter failure. Why give the agenda’s failed slogans and propaganda more space? Why tie a business model to shrinking demographics and hollow ideology?

One of the nation’s most fraudulent mythologies over the last three or four decades is the right-wing argument that the media actually holds a left-wing bias. It has been repeated so often by right-wing politicians and the right-wing press, media executives probably think this to be true. It isn’t true. Metropolitan newspapers represent the epitome of American capitalism and conservative, authoritarian political views, and every rhetorical aspect of their content reflects this.

All of this brings us to the state’s two largest newspapers, The Oklahoman and The Tulsa World, both of which only serve conservative audiences and continue to frame stories with a right-wing bias. How can they attract new readers to their online sites given the fact they have supported and continue to support some of the nation’s most extreme conservative politicians, such as U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe? Are they self-destructing? How can they attract the loyalty and trust of progressives and centrists as they tacitly support the extreme right-wing agenda? Is it even possible? If not, doesn’t this mean there are opportunities for new centrist online sites in Oklahoma?

One bit of information that muddies the issue is the fact Oklahoma lags behind in Internet use. Only 58 percent of Oklahomans live in a home with access to Internet. The national average is 67 percent. Oklahoma has the fifth lowest rate in the nation. Perhaps the low Internet use means the two newspapers have been slow to capitalize fully on new readership groups compared to the rest of the country, and this will change.

Metropolitan newspapers and their online sites must become more inclusive, support a wide-range of political candidates, reject right-wing extremism and embrace progressive voices, or they will continue to decline financially.