The Cablevision/Newsday Deal – Think Locally, Act Locally

The cable giant bought Newsday on their home turf of Long Island for $650 million after a bidding war with Rupert Murdoch and Mort Zuckerman.  When billionaires place that much value on a local newspaper (albeit in a lucrative market), maybe the demise of newspapers is not as close as we think.  It is fashionable among media pundits and bloggers to pile on the newspaper business and declare it done for.  They always point to the fact young people don’t read newspapers and get their news on the web.  Has anyone bothered to ask what the newspaper subscription rate has been historically been among young adults – I bet it has always been low.  Not a huge priority at that stage in life.  And, what happens when these hip kids who have no use for newspapers and land lines get older and have kids, houses, careers, etc. 

I do agree that some of what newspapers currently do is obsolete.  National and global news is a commodity – either online, on TV or from the wire services.  Having it appear in a local newspaper serves very little purpose to the reader, who has probably already seen or heard the story in another more immediate platform.  For newspapers to succeed in the future they need to think locally – people love local news – the more local the better.  Reading about politics and tragedies in foreign lands is important but it really has little effect on the average person’s life.  However, they sure do like reading about their own slice of life in their town and region.  These stories have a real and emotional connection, and who doesn’t like keeping up on local gossip.  I may not know all the facts of what’s going on in Darfur or the real difference between Sunni and Shiite; but I know the gory details of an upcoming property tax increase vote in my town and the story of the kid up the street who was arrested for drug possession.

To take it one step further, instead of expending resources by having international and national news bureaus, redeploy those resources into good old investigative journalism on the local level.  Some of the best work from a newspaper is when they uncover crime, corruption or some other injustice in their backyard.  The Boston Globe did a great job this year exposing Mitt Romney’s illegal alien gardeners and some questionable ethics from the current speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representative, Sal DiMasi.  Newsday has a long history of doing that on Long Island, and I hope the new owners will be committed to that tradition.  There is real value in providing this type of content and service to a community.  And, it builds readership affinity for the advertisers, most of which are small local companies who do not run big web or TV campaigns, and rely on the local paper to get their message out.

The local angle is why I think the Cablevision/Newsday deal will work.  They can create an integrated media channel (print, web, cable, events) for readers and the local advertisers who want to reach them. In addition, Newsday now has ownership by people who actually live in the community and have a vested interest.  The days of the big remotely-owned newspaper chains and the homogenization of news that it brought may be over.  Maybe it is time that the local paper goes back to the future and becomes a major player in their community.

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