报纸眼里不能只有钱

    哈里•谢瑞尔在《哥伦比亚新闻评论》（Columbia Journalism Review）的专栏中写道，这种“蹩脚的决定”表明，先进出版公司根本不了解新奥尔良的市场。“人们不可能真正在乎自己不了解的东西。”谢瑞尔是一位政治讽刺作家、演员、电台主持人，同时也是新奥尔良居民，他认为，既然报纸享有美国宪法《第一修正案》（First Amendment）的保护，那么报纸的后台老板们“也应该有所舍弃——至少应该平心静气接受比其他行业，比如汽车租赁行业，低一点的利润率。”

    当然，没有人希望报纸赔钱。可问题在于，报纸对利润的追逐超过什么样的界限，就会对它所服务的社区造成严重的伤害？在许多城市，这一界限多年以前就已经被打破。而对于这个因素，许多评论家同样避而不谈。有多少地方政府的丑闻没有得到曝光？由于报社裁员，导致多少家长根本不清楚他们所在校区的状况？（在上世纪70和80年代，绝对不可能出现这样的情况。）而又有多少选民在不知情的情况下投出了选票，或者因为对于竞选人知之甚少而放弃了投票？简单的一份收益表根本无法衡量这样的损失。

    从理论上来说，报纸老板怀念过去大把捞钱的好日子也情有可原，毕竟，在二十多年前，报纸的利润率通常在30%左右，有时甚至会超过40%。（即便在十年前，报纸平均利润率也超过20%。）然而，往事已矣，出版商也早就应该做好思想准备。虽然对当前报纸的利润率估算存在差异，但大概范围应该在8%至15%之间。报纸投资的青黄不接（需要注意的是，这一现象在互联网兴起之前就已经开始）最后都指向了一个结论：报纸老板不会投资于报纸的数字化诶来，只会通过尽可能削减成本，利用报纸圈钱，然后尽快脱身。而同时，他们又要面临一个难题：虽然印刷广告的收入在急剧减少，但在线广告的收入仍远远低于印刷广告，而且在线广告的收入同样在迅速下降。这也是狂热的数字支持者们在威吓出版商向全数字媒体转变时尽量掩盖的另外一个事实。

    据报道，除了每周减少四期报纸外，先进出版公司还计划裁减约三分之一员工，包括编辑部员工（具体数字未知）。这表明他们只对一个衡量标准感兴趣：现有资产未来收益的净现值——而他们所关注的“未来”并没有想象中那么长远。否则，他们应该将减少出版期数节省的成本用于网络运营投资。比如，增加精通网络的记者和编辑等。但他们并没有这么做，反而背道而驰。

    沃伦•巴菲特在给新奥尔良市一位音乐家的回信中写道：从长期来看，先进出版公司的举措是不可持续的。他表示，既然报纸有如此高的渗透率，“为什么发行日刊从经济学角度来看会行不通？这让他很是费解。当然，没有具体的数据，我也无法进行具体分析。”

    By this "stumble-footed decision," Advance has revealed that it doesn't "understand the New Orleans market," writes Harry Shearer in a column for the Columbia Journalism Review. "You can't care about what you don't understand." Shearer, the political satirist, actor, radio host, and New Orleans resident, believes that since newspapers are unique in the First Amendment protections they enjoy, their owners "owe a little something back -- perhaps a calm acceptance of a lower profit margin than could be attained, say, in the car-leasing business."

    Of course, nobody wants newspapers to lose money. The question is, at what point does the pursuit of profit begin to do serious harm to the communities served by newspapers? In many cities, that point was reached years ago. This is another factor that often goes unaddressed in such discussions. How many local-government scandals have gone unreported? How many parents, who would have been well-informed in the '70s and '80s, are ignorant as to what's going on in their school districts because of cutbacks in reporting staffs? How many voters make uninformed decisions, or just decide not to show up at the polls, because they have little idea about what's going on in their state capitals? These things can't be measured by an income statement.

    Theoretically, newspaper owners might be forgiven for their nostalgic yearning for the profit margins of the past, which a couple of decades ago were often around 30% and sometimes went north of 40%. (Just a decade ago, the average was more than 20 percent). But those days are gone, and publishers have known it for years. Estimates vary widely, but margins now tend to average somewhere between 8% and 15%. The continued disinvestment in newspapers (which, it must be noted, began well before the Web came along) points to only one conclusion: owners, rather than investing in the digital future, are trying to wring as much money out of newspapers as they can by cutting costs as much as they can get away with. In the meantime, they're faced with a conundrum: although revenues from print ads are falling fast, online ads still draw far less, and rates for online ads are falling fast, too. Which is another fact that rabid digital enthusiasts tend to gloss over when they hector publishers to convert to all-digital publication.

    Along with cutting out four print editions per week, Advance is also reportedly planning to cut as much as a third of the staff, including some newsroom employees (specifics aren't known yet). This shows that they are interested in only one metric: the net present value of future returns on existing assets -- and not all that far into the future. Otherwise, they'd be taking the cost savings from the print cutback and investing them in the Web operation. By adding some Web-savvy reporters and editors to the staff, say. But they aren't. They're doing the opposite.

    Advance's move is "unsustainable over the longer term," wrote Warren Buffett in answer to a letter from a New Orleans musician. He said that, given the high penetration rate, he was "puzzled as to why the economics don't work on a seven-day basis. But I would have to have the detailed figures to make an analysis."