Local publishers: Papers far from extinction

Printed newspapers are far away from disappearing, executives from Clark County's three largest publishers told a library-sponsored forum Thursday night.

But the days may be numbered for free online duplication of newspapers' printed content, all three suggested.

Marvin Case, editor and publisher of the Battle Ground-based Reflector, said his paper has completed a full redesign of its Web site, but he's decided never to launch it.

"You can't sell that," said Case. "You can't make money on it."

More than half of almost all newspapers' revenue comes from advertising, not paid subscriptions.

But Scott Campbell, owner and publisher of the Vancouver-based Columbian and the Camas-Washougal Post-Record, said online advertising has proved less valuable to advertisers than print ads.

Campbell criticized his industry for simply "shoveling" stories identical to its print edition onto their Web sites.

"That's not what the Internet is all about," he said. "The Internet is all about interactivity."

Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian, said a common argument in the industry is that newspapers "weren't smart enough or brave enough" to charge for their content.

A 1995 issue of Editor and Publisher magazine reported that 45 U.S. newspapers charged for online content. Many later abandoned the idea.

Newspapers' underlying problem isn't political slant, Campbell said.

The Columbian's cancellation orders include about "10 a month from people who think we're too liberal and 10 from people who think we're too conservative," he said. "I don't intend to solve that any time in my career."

But whatever their reason, cancellations have accelerated, newspaper audit reports show.

The Columbian's non-Sunday circulation has fallen 22 percent since 2006, to 39,755, and the Oregonian's 17 percent, to 268,512.

The Columbian has cut more than 100 employees since 2006, leaving a staff of 259 when it sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month for reasons Campbell said were related to the construction of its downtown office building.

The Oregonian has also laid off part-time workers and announced an across-the-board pay cut in March.

The Reflector's circulation has grown 1 percent since 2006. It distributed an average of 27,930 copies weekly in 2008, all but 1,468 of them for free.

All three papers' profit has also suffered. The Reflector, Case said, had its best year on record in 2008, but the first six months of 2009 were so bad that its profit may be down 15 percent by the end of June.

"The guy who used to advertise to haul logs no longer advertises," Case said. "There are lots of guys like this."

It's not for lack of effort on his part, said Case, 65. He said he typically works 70 hours a week, including doing the paper's plumbing and landscaping, and hasn't taken a week-long vacation since buying the paper in 1979.

Newspapers across the country are seeing similar trouble, two industry experts said Thursday.

But bigger papers are in more trouble.

Alan Mutter, a San Francisco entrepreneur and former newspaper editor whose company has designed a targeted advertising system for newspapers, said newspapers in large markets have suffered because they don't have time to cover local news as comprehensively as those in small towns.

Small papers, he said, might have more success charging for their content online than large ones.

"Police, the water you drink … I think people will pay for that kind of content if they can't get it anywhere else," Mutter said. "The more exclusive that report is, I think they can charge for it."

But Robert Niles, editor of the University of Southern California's Online Journalism Review, said any development that might boost newspapers' online revenue would also be good for their competitors.

"If reporters and knowledgeable sources could more easily make a living writing online, they'd be starting competing news Web sites at a rate that would make the current information market look feeble," Niles wrote in an e-mail. "A poor ad market is the newspapers' best friend right now, ironically, as it deters new competition."

Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.