• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, August 9, 2016

While John Oliver’s lengthy exegesis of the newspaper industry’s woes was pretty funny, at least in this media blogger’s humble op-ed, the Newspaper Association of America is not amused – and maybe the industry organization has a point here.

Indeed, in his open letter to Oliver rebutting the critique, NAA president and CEO David Chavern zeroed on the one big flaw in the rant, humorous as it was: a lack of real solutions.

Chavern noted that some parts of Oliver’s rant were quite favorable to newspapers, especially in emphasizing the central role their journalism plays in the news ecosystem, including in support broadcast reporting.

But Chavern took issue with Oliver’s rundown of newspaper publishers, especially “tronc” (formerly Tribune Publishing), for failing to offer helpful suggestions in addition to the mockery: “Whatever you think of the name ‘tronc’ and that company’s announced growth strategy, at least they are trying new things and trying to figure out how to create great news journalism in the digital era.”

Here, I think the NAA is correct. It’s one thing to “take the piss” out of an institution that no one particularly likes to begin with, like the advertising business (sorry, just the truth), without offering constructive solutions to its problems. But once you’ve conceded that the institution in question is providing a social good, or at least trying to do so, any mockery of its obvious shortcomings ought to be accompanied by some discussion of how to correct them.

This may seem like it’s asking a lot for a news comedy program, but the fact is that by taking on big, serious issues and discussing them at length – even with a comedic bent – Oliver is raising the bar for his program. And the absence of practical potential solutions during the program was glaring.

As if aware of this big hole in the critique, Oliver did touch on one possible remedy, albeit vaguely and briefly, telling the audience that we have to be reconcile ourselves to the idea of paying for news. But this is a combination of half measures and wishful thinking: Newspaper publishers have been experimenting with online paywalls and other forms of paid content for years now and in most cases the takings simply aren’t big enough to keep the industry afloat.

Sure, a handful big national newspapers like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post can persuade consumers to pony up for monthly digital subscriptions, but this may not work for thousands of local newspapers with much smaller print and online audiences.

Just look at Gannett, the nation’s biggest publisher of local newspapers: after first introducing digital subs in 2012, the publishers’ circulation revenues remained flat at around $1.1 billion from 2011 to 2015.

In proportional terms, that’s an increase from 27.7% of total publishing revenues to 36.7% over the same period, but only because total revenues fell due to continuing ad declines.

So digital subs are at best a rearguard action, giving publishers a little more room to maneuver but far from solving their problems. At the same time, a number of big metro dailies have actually scrapped their paywalls, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News, out of concern that they would lose more by sacrificing digital audiences and advertising. (The DMN is now giving it another go.)

Thus, paying for news does not seem to be a solution for the industry’s woes in itself – advertising, in some shape or form, will always have to be a big part of the business, both online and in print. And there’s a range of promising new ventures in other areas that can help newspapers reach “the far shore,” as Chavern puts it, including selling branded products and services, live events, and so on.

But the big question still is: How can newspapers scale up their online ad revenues, which are currently still just a fraction of their overall business, quickly and sustainably? Well, some of the answer is more native advertising and branded content – but Oliver trashed native ads in a previous segment, so presumably that’s not acceptable either.

If anyone had the answers to all these questions, they would be busy reviving the fortunes of the newspaper industry and making a mint in the process – including John Oliver.  Obviously, there is a long way to go, with a lot of smart people pulling in the same direction (and many different directions too) before newspapers can look forward to a stable, sustainable future.

It does everyone a disservice to gloss over the complexity of the problem by suggesting any solution is more than partial, at best.

But Oliver is right about one thing: Tronc is a terrible, terrible name.