Ink-Stained Memories, Multimedia Futures

When was the last time you had ink-stained fingers after reading an article?

It’s been a while for me. As someone who grew up around newspapers, I am almost ashamed to say this: I can’t remember the last time I picked up and read an actual newspaper. These days, I read all my news online.

But sometimes (days like yesterday, in fact), I do miss that tactile sensation of picking up and reading a “real” newspaper.

I had a welcome interruption during my workday yesterday when an old friend of mine called me out of the blue. It was a business-related phone call about some new areas he’s venturing into with his business. He wanted my opinion and a little help in tracking down some information. But in the process, we briefly wandered down memory lane for part of the conversation.

Our detour took us back to a time in the mid 1990s when we were both newspaper reporters. It was a time when most people still took the Sunday paper. Computer-assisted reporting was just coming into vogue. And long, in-depth story features still had not met the short attention spans of online readers. Good old-fashioned print journalism still prevailed. And if you had a big story package in the Sunday paper, you could stay late in the newsroom, listen to the kerthunk, kerthunk, kerthunk of the press running in the background, and grab the first few copies of your above-the-fold story—barely dry ink and all.

It was a great time to be a reporter. And I’m really grateful I had the chance to experience that ink-stained era of the newspaper business before it completely fades into the collective memory and finds a permanent home between history book pages. Because here’s the deal: I think most newspapers will be inkless before long. They’ll live online instead. And the comforting kerthunk, kerthunk of the late-night printing press run will be a thing of the past—something that people lament and reminisce about like my friend and I did yesterday.

But back to my friend and that conversation. As with most successful business owners I know these days, my friend is looking for creative ways to expand his business. He’s expanding the definition of what he does and what his business offers clients. And while he’s looking for ways to expand, he’s also running a leaner operation these days. He did the tough thing and recently laid off some staff. And he’s looking for other ways to keep his business engine running—regardless of where the economy heads in coming months.

I am rambling on about all this here on The Golden Pencil because I think my friend is a good example of how to run a successful freelance business these days. In fact, I should probably feature my friend here on this blog before too long.

My friend will be surprised to know that I’m not at all concerned about his survival in this economy. I know with 100 percent certainty that he and his business will pull through. I know this because he’s always seen opportunities where others see roadblocks. He has a lot of faith in himself and his business. And even though he’s concerned about the economy and what it all means, he’s not dwelling on the problems. He’s focusing on the solutions. Several solutions, in fact.

Most of all, he has an open mind. He refuses to narrowly define himself by what he’s done in the past. And he wouldn’t have a successful media business today if he had continued to define himself as a newspaper reporter. He’s a media professional with a background in hard news reporting who also knows a thing or two about how to write a feature story, newsletters, grant proposals, and screenplays. He knows how to blog, use all the social media sites, and can operate a video camera. He’s even made a movie or two.

And aside from all those skills, he’s a great entrepreneur with a bunch of business sense.

Do I have the same confidence that my old friend, the newspaper, will survive this climate? No. Not at all.

Talking to my friend yesterday was a great reminder of how it pays to expand the definition of what you do in your business. People who insist on defining themselves by what they’ve done in the past lose out on new opportunities, and new streams of income. And companies that hold fast to old business models eventually go out of business.

There are newspapers out there that have and will go out of business. And they’ll go out of business because their business model failed to expand along with the market demands for different kinds of news consumption.

Go out and look at some newspaper Web sites. Compare them to the Web sites for various radio and television stations. What do you notice? If you’re like me, you’ll observe that a lot of newspaper Web sites pale by comparison to those operated by some TV and radio stations when you look at them through a multimedia lens. It used to be that newspapers were defined by ink, TV stations were defined by video, and radio stations were defined by audio. There was no blending of any of those three media types in the “good old days.” Now, it’s a different story. A good media Web site offers readers the opportunity to consume news via print, audio, video, and through other mediums like Twitter. Newspapers, in my opinion, aren’t excelling in this transition at all. But television stations? In many cases, they’re offering the full multimedia experience to readers and viewers. And in some cases, they’re doing it quite well.

So newspapers that insist on defining themselves in a narrow way without venturing into video (because that’s what TV stations do!) and other multimedia platforms are, in fact, sealing their fate. By choosing not to move forward with the times, they’re choosing to go out of business. It’s just that simple.

On Facebook, there’s a group called “Don’t Let Newspapers Die.” I belong to the group (because I kept getting invites from all my newspaper friends). But I didn’t invite anyone else to join once I got the invitation. Why? In my opinion, the old business model of newspapering should be allowed to die (go ahead my friends—throw the tomatoes). It’s not viable anymore to hope or expect that newspapers will recover and bounce back into their old traditional media ways once this whole economic storm passes over. The industry is changing. Rapidly.

So you’re probably asking: How does all this apply to me as a freelance writer?

It serves as a powerful reminder.

Adapt as my friend is doing, or die as a business like some newspapers. Adopt new ideas and technology or don’t. Embrace multimedia or filter it all out. Pretend that all these changes aren’t happening and get back to me in a year. Will you still own your business?

Probably not.

Photo credit: House of Sims (Flickr)