Reports of Dead Newspapers - Are They Exaggerated?

Randy Siegel, the President of Parade Publications, recently wrote an article in Advertising Age regarding the decline of newspapers. Major-market-newspaper circulation has declined 15% since 1997 and TV and consumer magazines have lost circulation as well. However, he demonstrates a unique point of view in that he thinks optimistically and believes in the reinvention of newspapers.

Within his report, he suggests that newspapers learn from MySpace and Facebook and create social net-working sites. This could “engage their different audiences around consumer interests.” Additionally, newspapers could start “charging for the newsroom content that portals and online aggregators pilfer and profit from.” Lastly, Siegel feels that newspapers could benefit from hiring “more-provocative and diverse voices, including high-school and college students, who can help create compelling content for their respective communities.”

Therefore, Siegel urges newspapers to “rethink their strategies and reengineer their organizations.” Then, newspapers could have the ability to prove, once and for all, that reports of dead or dying newspapers are greatly exaggerated.

For more on Randy Siegel’s evaluation of newspapers, read the full article “Parade President: Reports of death of papers have been greatly exaggerated.”