This week, Tribune Co. formally announced plans to spin off its print media business and focus exclusively on cable television. The news, though hardly surprising, is crushing nonetheless for the few of us left who think a newspaper is worth just a little bit more than a standard roll of 2-ply.
Tribune Co. has been distancing itself from its print media brand at such an alarming rate that you’d think Aaron Hernandez was its editor in chief. And they’re not alone. Scripps, Time Inc. and News Corp. are just a few of the conglomerates that have been sending their print products off to the leper colonies.
The message is painfully clear. Even the people who make newspapers and magazines no longer believe in print media. This is the end. The pope has lost his faith in Christ.
The Chicago Tribune did not invent but did much to define and personify the American newspaper much as Time Inc. did with the magazine. Now the parent companies of each have spun off their print divisions, writing them off as money-sucking, hopeless endeavors- dead weight holding the Tribune Co. and Time Warner back. It’s the media equivalent of Coca-Cola spinning off its soft drink business to focus on making hippie water and Fruitopia.
However, in moving its core business from newspapers to cable TV, Tribune Co. is simply slowing, not reversing, its deep decline. It’s essentially little more than giving up ingesting arsenic in favor of picking up chain smoking.
It is easy to understand why, after watching companies such as Kodak plummet by clinging dearly to a core product drifting into obsolescence, Tribune Co. wants to move in a new direction. But can they really feel too good about going all in on cable television? Although theTribune’s family of TV networks is profitable for now, cable is not exactly the industry of the future. Look around many college student or young professional’s apartment and your odds of finding a full-service cable box are about as good as finding a Rolodex.
There are the eternal optimists who state that once spun off, print media companies will be free of crippling bureaucracy and corporatization and will be able to efficiently turn out a high quality and sustainable profit. And although I have romantic dreams of this utopian future, I think this scenario is about as likely as Amanda Bynes saying someone is pretty.
And why are there no facts in this column to back up my outlandish claims? Because truth, objectivity and thorough fact checking are the domain of strong newspapers, which the Tribune Co. and most of America’s major media companies have boldly declared a thing of the past.
Mike Mallazzo is a rising Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this letter, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].
