Getting a copy of a newspaper anywhere in the world used to be as easy as calling in at your local news stand, grocery shop or petrol station. But in Atlanta last week, one of the larger cities in the US and home to the world’s busiest airport, that task proved a little more challenging than I had imagined.
The local convenience store said they no longer stocked them, and the neighbourhood petrol stations had not a single newspaper or magazine on display. An enquiry at the hotel front desk where I was staying came to nought. The newspaper vending machines that used to be a ubiquitous presence on US city streets are no longer so – now those items are likely to be considered as collectibles available to buy for hundreds of dollars on auction sites.
Most of those people I asked about where to pick up a newspaper said “it’s all digital now” as if I was from an unconnected analogue planet. I didn’t expect the task of finding a newspaper to be so difficult.
There is, however, some context to unpack here.
Printed editions of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have been distributed and sold to readers for the past 157 years, but the final edition of the award-winning title will be sent to press on December 30. The organisation announced that it would stop printing as a significant step in its digital transformation plan. Their reporting will continue to be consumed by online subscribers day and night. It also said it would carry on producing an ePaper in the absence of a printed product.
The final curtain for print is preparing to come down at an historic title even if some of the sensibilities of newspaper production will be retained in digital form.
This move is part of a broader trend. A Northwestern University study titled The State of Local News, published last year, found that 3,300 newspapers have ceased printing in the US over the past 20 years, a situation hastened in all likelihood by both the 2008 financial crisis and the reordering of the habits of the world that the Covid-19 pandemic delivered from 2020 onwards.
But this is not a column mourning the death of print, others can write that, although we definitely lose something when newspapers stop the presses.
For most media organisations around the world, print became one method of distribution, rather than the method of distribution, a long time ago. Over its own 17-year existence, The National has progressively reduced its print days from seven to five, reflecting changing reader preferences. Other forms of media distribution are more efficient and quicker than print, such as push notifications and social media posting that carry the news directly to the consumer at speed.
This is despite the fact that, in a world where many people actively avoid the news due to feeling unsettled by persistent digital noise, a physical printed newspaper has the advantage of being a calm and unplugged presence in an always switched-on world.
The days of infinite scroll on digital platforms, which promote a form of inattentive engagement, are also both a blessing and a curse, loading layer upon layer of information upon the reader without any sense of priority or urgency. No wonder more people feel overwhelmed by information than ever before.
Some industry practitioners also argue that news websites, the primary alternative to print, may have hit a developmental roadblock because home pages typically display breadth of coverage and long lists of links rather than clearly defined priorities. An average printed page of this publication will, meanwhile, have a small group of stories on it, designed, edited and structured for priority and clarity.
It is a highly curated product, although viewers of The Paper – a recent comedic mockumentary TV series set in a fictional US newsroom and available on OSN+ – may beg to differ if they watched one of the lead characters unlovingly muscle any-old wire story into tired news page templates in one of its earlier episodes.
There are other issues, too. In a prediction piece for Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation Lab published late last year, Simon Allison wistfully asked: “Has anyone ever printed out the home page of a news website to hang on their wall? Do you remember news websites in the same way that you remember newspaper front pages or magazine covers? No and no.”
Allison has a point. In common with many other newspapers, the lobby area of The National’s newsroom is lined with copies of our front pages from consequential days over the past few years. We also post the front page of our newspaper on social media on every print day, because digital audiences continue to show interest in physical news presentation. Some might say that is the best method of distribution combined with a superior storytelling structure.
The crux of the general issue around the decline or absence of print may really be about memory and format. How might we recall key events without the framework of a front page and a well-written headline? Newsprint archive sites are not only useful prompts about the past, but historical repositories of thought, presentation and perspective. Maybe retaining ePapers will help some of us transition to the paperless world and continue to scratch those archival itches, so we can remember how we once were.
There is also the issue of revenue. As more websites move to monthly subscription models, a casual reader in an unfamiliar city will become locked out of local news. We may become less curious and more siloed in our thinking about the world as a result. Addressing that issue may require news organisations to explore micro-subscription models, such as low-cost, pay-as-you-go schemes, and be forced to relentlessly market their presence in the absence of a physical footprint.
Losing print almost certainly serves news audiences better, but retaining the first rough draft of history in a recoverable form for years to come will require thought and care.
My newspaper-buying dollars were finally spent at Atlanta airport before my flight home, where I found only a couple of AJC copies available for sale.
In less than 90 days, they won't be there at all.
