OPINION

Ours is to question.

Ink-stained wretches at weekly newspapers like this one were at one time content to put out the best newspaper they could muster, once a week. If something really big happened, like downtown burning to the ground, they’d put out a special edition, usually called an “Extra.”

Our big-city cousins, often faced with a cross-town rival, would do the same but for the most part, people who wanted to know the latest news turned to their favorite radio station at the top of the hour.

In the 1990s, that all began to change with the spread of the world wide web.

For decades people in this industry have gathered at seminars designed to answer fundamental questions about the proper use of the internet and in particular, “how do we make money?” But perhaps more germane, “how do we not cause the demise of our business model?”

Because by the end of the millennium, the genie was out of the bottle, the toothpaste out of the tube.

For centuries print journalism thrived with a simple yet viable business model:

The newspaper delivers credible information and entertainment to its market for a fraction of what it costs to produce their product, and then they make their money by selling their readership to (hopefully) credible advertisers.

So for as long as you’ve been alive (if you’re over the age of 30) when you paid for this newspaper, you shelled out about 20% of the cost of producing it.

That business model works as well as it ever did and that’s because of the impact, the permanency, the reliability but most important, the credibility of our printed weekly product.

But the internet heralded a new age of information and with it, what Madison Avenue calls “the attention economy.” It seems that money is made, these days, by getting your attention. To a certain extent, that’s always been the case, it is Dale Carnegie’s first rule of sales and he practiced his technique in the days of telegraph wires.

Which is to say, he wasn’t competing with the known universe. If this editorial has reached you via the internet, its message is doing the same.

But the verve to be first, to get your attention, has overtaken the media’s desire to be correct and comprehensive.

It’s just one of many ailments that plague our business, but we’d like you to know why your newspaper may appear less urgent than others.

We hope that you depend on other news sources because that makes you a more informed citizen.

But it is our hope that, when it comes to news and entertainment about Mason County, no one comes close to The Journal.

Because what we want to be is a meaningful and reliable source of information for you.

And if you find it here first, that’s OK too.

Author Bio

Justin Johnson, Editor

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
Email: [email protected]