No more wet papers in Detroit

More and more bad news just keeps coming for newspapers. Bankruptcies, layoffs, up for sale, dropped benefits – the list keeps growing.

In Detroit, the Free Press and the News are planning to dump daily home deliveries except for the three highest circulation days – Sunday, Thursday and Friday. These are the first major newspapers to do such a thing.

"We're fighting for our survival," said David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press and CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, a joint operating agreement between the two papers, told CNNMoney.com. "We think it’s time to take a geometric leap forward in what we've known as newspapers."

Uh-huh, somebody’s taking a “geometric leap” here but it’s not the Free Press or the News. Why do newspapers, who are supposed to report the news without the spin, insist on spinning their own news? This move is about money, nothing more, nothing less. The paper wills save big bucks on the cost of paper and ink. I guess they’ll save some on staff, too, since this will result in some layoffs.

Under this new plan, Web sites will be expanded and “abbreviated versions” of papers will remain on news racks.
If you don’t have a computer in Detroit, you’re pretty much screwed if you want some news, unless you make a trip out to a news stand. For most, that may not be an issue. But considering that most newspaper readers are older, how many of those readers no longer drive? They may not have any way to go pick up a paper. And why go through all that trouble for an abbreviated edition?

While money may be saved in the short term, in the long run, both papers will end up losing readers and advertisers. Here’s the thing, newspaper publishers, those of us who still read the paper, do for a reason. We like to read the news. In our hands. Spread out on the floor, or the table, or on the couch. It’s the same reason that I don’t do e-books. I’m not going to lug my computer around everywhere I go. I’m not taking it to the dentist’s office to read while I wait; I won’t take it with me on the light rail while I go someplace; forget taking it along to a restaurant to read while eating breakfast.

And I don’t want an “abbreviated” newspaper. I want a real, actual newspaper with real, actual news inside it. The only silver lining I can find is the one I used for the title: No more complaints from readers about papers being tossed in puddles or into bushes or stolen by their neighbors. That's a pretty crappy lining, though.