In a capitalistic system, if you are going to go public, your company will have to not just make a profit, but to increase that profit each quarter. To do that you will have to 1) cut expenses, 2) increase prices, 3) increase market share, 4) introduce new products, or 5) expand into other commercial activities.
Your biggest bang for your buck is to get rid of people - amazing, your productivity will always increase, current costs will drop quickly and balance sheets will rise, legacy cost decreases will lift your P & L and make your stock shine, beep, and say “howdy” on the market. You won’t have to charge customers more money for your product, become creative, try to kill one of your current competitors, or take on a new batch of competitors.
Newspapers have been in an increasing downhill spiral since the radio began broadcasting news. Now with radio, TV, internet, Twitter and all, newspapers have been shoved out of the “breaking news” business all together, and their “scoops” now come in the form of in-depth analysis and prolipsis announcements that can only come from great knowledge about the places and things about which they are reporting.
The business of news - call it The Press or The Media - has clearly changed dramatically in the last twenty years. We always long for the “good old days” to return, no matter what the issue. Truth is, they don’t - they never do - because they can’t. (And we would be miserable if they did!) News has not only become faster but also more fragmented. We’ve always had propaganda and sensational information but now they mingle with reputable news organizations. Paul Krugman publishes on the Steven Colbert program, they each have a part of the news - together they get “it” (meaning something) out to more masses.
It may be that in the same sense that IBM moved from the typewriter business into the information storage and retrieval business, so too newspapers have changed from the newsprint business into some new business. To name this “new business” will take someone who is more familiar with the issue than I.
The BIG TRICK is how to pay highly qualified people an income commensurate with the work they do - much of which requires comprehensive technical and professional expertise, and also has an extremely low productivity factor in sometimes lengthy initial stages.
There is a lot more to be said on this issue but it will have to come in another post. I need discussion from someone else.
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