A now well-known saying was first uttered when an American newspaper published Mark Twain's obituary while he was still alive. "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," the witty writer humbly responded. What made me think of that quote? The projected death of print journalism, which has been prophesied for decades: when television was invented, when the Internet became popular, when smartphones and tablet computers cropped up. Each one of these milestones significantly affected the media and was accompanied by gloomy projections for the future of print journalism. So far, the projections have proved far darker than the reality. An Israel Hayom tour of the offices of major U.S. newspapers last week, however, proved to us unequivocally that global journalism is facing a serious crisis, one that hasn't spared even the biggest and most well-known of the world's publications. We visited the offices of The Washington Post, The New York Times, U.S.A. Today, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News. At most of the offices, the crisis manifested itself on both ends of the newspaper's activities: On the editorial side, the newspapers are losing readers and subscribers at an alarming rate, and newspapers that printed millions of copies just a year or two ago are now printing only several hundred thousand; on the commercial side, print journalism in America has lost between 17 and 19 percent of its advertising revenue in recent years. The income from advertising has plummeted to a low not seen in three decades. This level of revenue obviously cannot sustain a modern newspaper, with modern expenses. In simple terms: Almost all the newspapers are losing money. Lots of money. One of the senior editors we met on our tour described the state of print journalism with an alarming metaphor: "If the water was at waist level 10 years ago, it reached chest level five years ago, and now it is at nose level ..." At its root, this crisis stems from the devastating economic crisis the U.S. has been facing since 2008, and from changes in the way people consume news, a product of the dizzying expansion of digital channels. Surprisingly, contrary to the situation in Israel, none of the American newspapers has blamed Israel Hayom for the crisis. This is interesting considering that, judging by Israeli newspapers, the inception of Israel Hayom is exclusively responsible for the fact that print journalism is fighting for its life. And while we're on the topic of Israel Hayom and the free newspaper model, perhaps our readers should know that even a globally respected newspaper like The Washington Post distributes a free publication called the Express some 200,000 copies written and edited by The Washington Post staff and distributed free of charge. The Express' biggest rival, The Examiner, is also distributed free of charge, with some 300,000 copies, with the option of paying for a home-delivery subscription. Just like Israel Hayom. It's good to know that we're not alone. The crisis hasn't spared print journalism outside the U.S., either. Just this weekend, we were told that the major Spanish newspaper El Pais was firing about a third of its staff. The crisis in print naturally gives rise to the alternative of digital journalism. All the major newspapers are stepping up efforts to build their digital channels, online or on mobile applications. Large development teams are working to develop new applications and ideas. All the newsrooms that we saw were integrated newsrooms, where print and digital editors work side by side and the content is processed collectively and distributed to all the channels in accordance with their individual needs. In addition, there is not a single major newspaper today that doesn't have a video studio in its newsroom. A lot of emphasis is placed on video these days. Currently, the ratio in Israel between print and digital, in terms of readership and revenue, is 80:20. But that is changing rapidly, and digital is, apparently, the future of journalism. It will shift in the not so distant future from print to digital format, though, as mentioned earlier, it is impossible to predict how long this will take. Only one problem remains: how to generate revenue from digital journalism. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch recently said that for every dollar he loses in print ads, he is compensated with a dime in digital ads. When this ratio begins to shift, the revolution will be at hand.
