Is Boston about to become a 1 Paper Town?

As a guy who fancies himself a writer, what's going on with newspapers today saddens me. Every day you can find stories about how people in newsrooms across the country are being laid off and papers are shutting down. But, I have to be honest, I didn't think that would happen here. Oh sure, I figured the writers with the bigger contracts would be asked to take a buy-out and some local coverage would suffer, but I thought over the long haul both papers would be fine.

Turns out that it's not looking so great for the Boston Globe. The New York Times, which owns the Globe is looking to cut about $20 million in costs and is going to lean on the unions to do it. Unfortunately, this is a simple issue of economics that don't look too great for the unions: the workers can make less, or they can all make nothing. As a guy who grew up reading the Globe (and never the Boston Herald), I'm hoping they can come to some sort of solution to the problem and keep the Globe in business to see if they can ride out the current economic problems. To have only the one paper choice would be very weird.

This speaks to the larger issue of the health of the newspaper industry. Even if the Globe can stay afloat, is it going to make it the next 5 years? Or, is this cost-cutting drive simply going to delay the inevitable? A lot of people seem to blame the online versions of the papers, because why pay for the paper when you can get most of this stuff online for free? But, I think it's also an issue of time. Between 24 hour news channels and the Internet, you can find out more than you ever wanted to about the latest news story before most papers even go to print. Reading more about it in the morning can just seem like over-kill. I used to think that papers would be ok because it's not like a laptop is convenient to bring on the train in the morning, but with the advances in technology like Blackberrys, it's getting easier and easier to read news right of the Internet no matter where you are.

Also, you can blame Craig's List for some of this. Newspapers used to rely heavily on the money they would make from people placing personal ads. When was the last time anyone called and ran an ad like that? Today you put it on Craig's List; it's free and reaches a much larger audience.

Sadly, I feel that even if the Globe sticks around for a couple more years, it's not likely to be a bastion for news anymore. Even if sites like Boston.com start charging you to read their stories in the online versions it won't help. People will just look elsewhere for their local news - there's always a cheaper version somewhere. Then there will be no reward for a well-researched or in-depth story. The result will be that people will only put out what needs to be done and no one will go the next step. Then the people that suffer the most will be readers of newspapers.

No matter how you slice it, the face of journalism is going to be very different in 5 years.