Address the Issue.
The problem isn’t that the internet is killing print. Or that the internet is killing attention spans. The issue is that text, in short bursts, reads well online.
And so, instead of producing multiple types of content, newspapers either hid the stories behind a paywall (making them irrelevant) or posted them in full online (making a print purchase seem a little foolish). Does a newspaper website make that print product irrelevant? No. It doesn’t offer the same experience, the same serendipity, that scanning a printed paper does. if it’s 6 screens long, it also doesn’t result is a pile of engaged readers paying attention to ads.
But a newspaper website allows readers to think ‘Why am I paying for this?’ which is the core problem. The actual value proposition of a print newspaper is poorly articulated. If you ignore the pains of reading long form text online, and ignore the actual print experience, reading it on the internet seems like a much better call. A printed newspaper can be read in a unique way, which is very well suited to presenting, well, news.
The internet does short bursts of text well. Video. Audio. Distribution. The assumption that the online presence of a newspaper, or a TV show, or a magazine, should be a flat out reproduction of the core product, is absurd. Create things that add to the core product, expand on it, but don’t replace it.
Paywalls are a half-assed solution to the problem of devaluing content. Consider a web-presence that actually adds value to your physical products, instead.
