THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601260202
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On the Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The day of reckoning is at hand for us ink-stained wretches, media pundits grimly predict.
Newspapers nationwide are losing subscribers and even newsstand buyers. Nobody wants to read any more. Nobody has time to read.
In some cases, people simply can't read.
The prevailing feeling is the printed word is boring, especially when you move your lips to sound out the words. It takes a lot of time to scan each line while your finger marks your progress down a column of type.
It also bugs the people sitting next to you in the office or at the coffee shop when you make little guttural noises as you mouth the words.
Television and personal computers are touting themselves as THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE!
Who needs a newspaper when you can watch Geraldo or Oprah or some seedier talk show personality prod a bunch of overeager slimeballs into revealing their disgusting and perverted sexual habits?
Or, who needs a newspaper when you can - for 24-hours nonstop, week in and week out, month after month - watch a bunch of TV news types with shellacked hair, pearly teeth and $600 suits do the news reading for you?
The potential market for newspapers is shrinking, experts say, because everybody owns a TV and they get their daily news fix and their jollies through this electronic medium.
Computers now have muscled into the daily information racket, allowing users to tap into all sorts of national and international networks. People can swap gossip, get news updates, get stock market quotes and even view the latest in porn with just a few clicks of a mouse.
But the question arises: How many of us blue-collar and frayed-collar types can afford to get in to this game, especially when we have to shell out $2,000 or more for a PC and all the trimmings? Answer: Not many.
Another fly in the newspaper ointment is the so-called ``shopper'' and ``market niche'' publications, which feature almost nothing but ads for local dry-cleaning stores, supermarkets, pizza joints, movie complexes and cut-rate jewelry outlets. These pamphlets, leaflets or whatever you want to call them, also are a pain because they cut into a newspaper's traditional advertising base. Why? Because they run ads more cheaply than newspapers and the ads are aimed at specific markets.
So, what's a poor newspaper to do? Well, the bright lights in the industry have tried to jazz up their products with lots of bells and whistles - flashy color photos, graphs and arrows, big headlines, cutesy little stories and softball think pieces accompanied by lots of soulful (and don't forget meaningful) photo illustrations.
Industry brains hoped the strategy would prompt millions of nonreaders across the country to stampede to their nearest newsstands or subscription desks. But what happened? Nothing. Readership is still declining.
So, newspapers remain in the midst of a serious identity crisis. Hand wringing continues unabated. We miserable scribes don't know whether to tap dance or go blind. The future ain't looking too rosy, or so it seems.
What's a hard-drinkin', foul-mouthed, cigar-chompin', debt-ridden, flinty-eyed, in-your-face newspaperman or woman supposed to do now, sell insurance?
Not in your life, baby - not as long as there is news to be reported, windbags to be deflated, trends to be aired, politicians to be hounded and flings to be flung.
Newspaper are here to stay until some genius figures out how to take a TV set or a personal computer into a bathroom or put one in a scrapbook or hang one on a refrigerator door with a magnet. by CNB