The (Allentown) Morning Call, April 14

How will newspapers survive in Internet age?

By Alan Janesch and Nichola Gutgold

Over the past 30 years, changes in newspaper production have been significant, even stunning: from linotype machines and hot lead type, typewriters and grease pencils, to computer terminals, satellite transmissions, digital cameras and online editions. And the ability to get news online, instead of from the traditional printed newspaper, may be the most dramatic change of all.

Online ''newspapers'' make it easy for readers to share stories from The Morning Call, as well as, regional and national newspapers, with friends and colleagues. While the Internet offers newspapers a greater reach, though, many newspapers are losing readers and some are struggling to stay profitable. What should newspapers do to stay relevant in this information-is-free-on-the-Internet era? Shouldn't newspapers continue to prosper, even in a mostly online environment. They are news-gathering and news-disseminating organizations with the resources and the staff to gather, shape and share information. That's the business they're in, even if the younger crowd of readers doesn't necessarily want their information in an ink-on-paper form.

Several years ago, MIT's Nicholas Negroponte gave a speech at Penn State about new ways of distributing information electronically. ''Print may go away,'' he said, ''but words aren't going to go away.'' So, what should the ''print'' media need to do to change or adapt the means of delivering their ''product'' and how do they keep it profitable? How can writers, art directors and editors make their online publications as tactile and sense-fulfilling as the paper ones?

It's faster and more ecologically sound to e-mail a story than to photocopy an article and mail it. It used to be that a newspaper article would be clipped and stored in a morgue envelop or archived on microfilm. Now, it is simple to retrieve an article in seconds online.

We think online retrieval of news stories is a vast improvement and a great boon to newshounds and researchers alike. But overall, newspaper junkies prefer the tactile experience of reading an actual newspaper. We turn the pages and fold them, hear the paper rustle, smell the ink and the newsprint, and (possibly) get ink rub-off on our fingers. All our senses are engaged, and because we are reading and looking at photos and graphics our minds are actively engaged, too.

Still, we both know younger people who are quite happy sitting on their living room couch, laptop on lap, wireless Internet access switched on, reading the newspaper online.

The New York Times has launched the TimesReader, which it bills as a digital newspaper that reads like the real thing. It sounds like something that newspaper junkies would like. But we wonder, if it makes sense to reproduce the look of the print newspaper on the computer screen. When newspapers use the online environment to link to video and audio files, background articles, additional photos, and other websites, they can provide a more stimulating, interactive and interconnected information experience. When print publications point us online, we gain immeasurably from the virtually limitless connectivity of the Internet. Reading the news becomes more engaging because information is coming to us from multiple directions.

Whatever the medium, print or Web, the key ingredients to a positive news-reading experience are good design and ease of moving around in a story (and from story to story and from section to section).

With the growing dominance of electronic media in American life, all newspapers must pay attention to available electronic resources. How will newspapers prosper economically in the Internet era? It's great that the Internet expands the reach of newspapers, but newspapers make their money on advertising, and ad rates are based on print newspaper circulation and readership. So, if newspapers do nothing to generate new revenues, their revenue base will slowly erode.

Some newspapers dedicate lots of staff and resources to their online versions and doing lots of strategic planning. Locally, The Morning Call has pretty good data about its subscribers and on-line readers. Every week, the print version of The Call reaches 70 percent of Lehigh County households. With on-line readers added in, the figure goes to 80 percent.

With that kind of data, The Morning Call -- and other papers -- can decide where their best potential is for readership growth. Then they can figure out how to draw in, retain and grow readership, allocate resources appropriately between their print and online versions, and (especially if that growth is among online readers) how to make sure the online version of the paper generates a profit.

As newspapers determine how to strike the right balance between printed and online formats, we think that newspapers will have an even more dynamic opportunity to strengthen the role of journalism as a public forum for citizens to use to connect to their communities and the world, make discoveries, and exercise the rights, civic responsibilities, and freedoms that this democracy provides.

Tell us how you feel about newspapers. Do you prefer reading the printed newspaper or the online version?

Alan Janesch is director of the Penn State Grassroots Network, a legislative education and advocacy group of the Penn State Alumni Association. He is a former Morning Call reporter and a former newspaper technology writer with American Newspaper Publishers Association (now the Newspaper Association of America). Nichola Gutgold, an associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley, uses newspapers in the courses she teaches.

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