COMMENT: The difference between ‘bullish’ and ‘bullsh*t’
By Adrian Barnes
If I’d been a tablet carver back in ancient Babylon and I’d seen a bunch of, to my mind, wacked out kids starting to mark up innocent sheets of papyrus with dyes, I’d have been pretty upset. That whole ink-on-paper thing is an outrage, I’d have thought. That flimsy stuff isn’t permanent, not like stone tablets! And it’s too cheap! What about all those carvers who’ll be driven out of business? Why, anyone can write on papyrus--and that’s a dangerous thing! Safer to have qualified stone carvers in charge of all the writing. Yup, stone tablets are the real McCoy and they’re here to stay...
I heard something like this in the voice of Black Press’ David Black a few months ago when, interviewed on CBC Radio, he predicted the resurgence of classified ads in his print papers. The Internet, he appeared to think, was just some sort of crazy fad like the hoola hoop or the Be-In. Forget craigslist, he seemed to be thinking: soon enough people would return to the time-tested values of the stone tabl--er, print newspaper.
That same kind of thinking was evident this week as Black Press chief operating officer Rick O’Connor said, “We’re very bullish on community newspapers in British Columbia”, particularly the Kootenays. That’s ‘bullish’ defined as ‘buy up the competition and shut them down, fire the staff and try to consolidate the ad revenue into the one surviving paper’.
I heard something like this in the voice of Black Press’ David Black a few months ago when, interviewed on CBC Radio, he predicted the resurgence of classified ads in his print papers. The Internet, he appeared to think, was just some sort of crazy fad like the hoola hoop or the Be-In. Forget craigslist, he seemed to be thinking: soon enough people would return to the time-tested values of the stone tabl--er, print newspaper.
That same kind of thinking was evident this week as Black Press chief operating officer Rick O’Connor said, “We’re very bullish on community newspapers in British Columbia”, particularly the Kootenays. That’s ‘bullish’ defined as ‘buy up the competition and shut them down, fire the staff and try to consolidate the ad revenue into the one surviving paper’.
Less staff, less variety of news: that there’s bull of some sort in this approach is certainly undeniable. But then again the difference between ‘bullish’ and ‘bullsh*t’ is only one letter.
Print is dying. The readership of print papers is fading fast. Advertisers are starting to see that few read print papers any more and that those who do are most often pensioners on fixed incomes who aren’t exactly the demographic they’re trying to reach. And yet corporations like Black Press keep trying to peddle their bull...ishness. Why?
The reason is because they’re scared. For decades, having a newspaper has been a license to print money. They’ve been able to offer a really low quality product with no fear of meaningful competition because the overheads associated with print are so high. The inevitable switch to the Internet takes away this advantage because it levels the playing field. Now anyone with a little savvy and a commitment to their community can have a product that’s the equal of what the corporations can come up with. Scary stuff indeed.
The web is good for readers for quality, for advertisers, for democracy, but it’s bad for the stone tablet carvers and their monopolies. This week, local MP Alex Atamanenko expressed fears about the concentration of media ownership (a very real danger if all a small town has is one Black Press paper) in the wake of the announcement of the closure of the Nelson Daily News. Instead, he ought to look to the future. The Internet promises a massive variety of voices and platforms for small towns. Good news, indeed.
But print? It’s almost done and no one, except the newspaper conglomerates and the owners of bird cages, should mourn its passing.
Print is dying. The readership of print papers is fading fast. Advertisers are starting to see that few read print papers any more and that those who do are most often pensioners on fixed incomes who aren’t exactly the demographic they’re trying to reach. And yet corporations like Black Press keep trying to peddle their bull...ishness. Why?
The reason is because they’re scared. For decades, having a newspaper has been a license to print money. They’ve been able to offer a really low quality product with no fear of meaningful competition because the overheads associated with print are so high. The inevitable switch to the Internet takes away this advantage because it levels the playing field. Now anyone with a little savvy and a commitment to their community can have a product that’s the equal of what the corporations can come up with. Scary stuff indeed.
The web is good for readers for quality, for advertisers, for democracy, but it’s bad for the stone tablet carvers and their monopolies. This week, local MP Alex Atamanenko expressed fears about the concentration of media ownership (a very real danger if all a small town has is one Black Press paper) in the wake of the announcement of the closure of the Nelson Daily News. Instead, he ought to look to the future. The Internet promises a massive variety of voices and platforms for small towns. Good news, indeed.
But print? It’s almost done and no one, except the newspaper conglomerates and the owners of bird cages, should mourn its passing.
