What Newspapers Can Teach Us

If you're in a print-related business, you're likely lamenting "What went wrong?" Even if you've read your share of eulogies on the newspaper industry, you'd do well to look at "Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing." Among the reasons Bill Wyman cites: "Timidity doesn't work on the web."

The web doesn’t reward blandness. It doesn’t really like the obvious, the inoffensive and the established. Today, if you published a web page with the headlines I just listed on it—you know, starting with “Wooden Memories” and going right on down to “Great Gifts for Teachers”—you wouldn’t get many readers. In this way, the web mercilessly exposes the flaccidness of the content of most papers.

Papers didn't innovate. They took the road "more traveled." They overlooked the new guy in town. The audience dissipated, then disappeared. However, in this whirlwind of change, one thing stayed the same: "good news." We're not talking "positive news" or even "well-written news." Whether print or digital, good news is relevant and engaging. It connects with the reader (or viewer or recipient).

In a nutshell, newspapers lost their audience. By the same token, and just as easily, a blogger can lose his or her audience. Like a newspaper, a blog withers without a steady flow of fresh, stimulating content. Experiences, anecdotes, observations that speak to the reader.

Even for the most precocious and verbose, writing a daily column or a regularly updated blog is a bear. No question: it can become a challenge and a chore. From the moment you take on the responsibility, you dread the day when the momentum falters, the energy lags, and you wonder "What more do I have to say?" Like that magnificent and oft-maligned relic, the newspaper, you not only have the ability but the obligation to startle, amuse, and provoke.

Journalist or blogger, the same lessons apply: you can't play it safe. And you have plenty of competition.