It's time for the news business to seize control

Last week I interviewed Scott Karp [1] from Publishing 2.0 [2], a venture that hopes to transform the news business by providing the means to aggregate and share quality journalism content on the web. Karp maintains that content producers like newspapers did not get into trouble because the content moved online, but because they lost control of the distribution channel, which is now controlled by--you guessed it--Google, and to a lesser extent other search engines like Yahoo!. He maintains that newspapers, and other content providers, have never been in the content business, they have been in the distribution business and when they lost control of that distribution, and the economy went bad, the business went south in a hurry.

Thinkin' about glory days

Karp says that newspapers controlled distribution for the last 150 years because there were few information alternatives and they were good at putting together a news and information package and delivering it to your doorstep every morning. "Newspapers are in the business of getting you to want to have delivered to your doorstep every morning a package of information, some of which they created, some of which others created and some who paid to be in there." Although people paid to have this package delivered, Karp points out that it wasn't the subscribers who were paying the bills, it was the advertisers.

He says when information became available on the web, newspapers lost control of the distribution business and ceded it--and he means that in the absolute sense, to the search engines. Google has borne the brunt of the frustration from newspapers because they are of course the most successful content conduit available today. They have been able to parlay that success, Karp explains into a multi-billion dollar advertising juggernaut. Now newspapers are lashing out at Google and Craigslist, but Karp's view is that instead of complaining, they should compete.

Hey kids, let's put on a show

Karp believes it's time for newspapers to take control of their own destiny. He points out that some newspapers are going so far as to suggest Google should share revenue, which to me is like me saying another freelance writer should share her revenue with me because she has a better year. Instead, in the spirit of those 1940s Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney movies, Karp thinks the newspaper business should put on their own show. He believes the newspaper business has basically just capitulated to Google. He says, "Forget Google! Do it yourself. Compete with them." And that's what Karp's business Publishing 2.0 is about, creating that alternative news aggregation engine to Google News.

He says that Google is good at a lot of things, but not really good at "what's new today, as in pick up the front page of the paper, what's new today." While Karp is obviously biased here because he wants his company to be that business, he believes that the newspapers could do a better job of aggregating news than Google, and if they got together, they could achieve the economy of scale required on the web to succeed and ultimately take a piece of Google's substantial ad revenue.

I like the idea of going on offense versus complaining and blaming. Newspapers and other content creators have always had the resources to do something like this, but they have never had what George H.W. Bush called "the vision thing." They have always lacked imagination, but the time has come to get creative and seize control of the fight. They might not win, but they'll go down fighting, instead of whining, and that sounds a heck of a lot better than where we are right now. And if Karp's right, we'll have a viable news business and everyone will win. - Ron [3]