I retired last month, but before I go to that big recycling bin in the sky, here are a few observations about newspapers and where they are headed:

The printed newspaper will be around for quite a while – not forever; but for another decade or two for most newspapers.  Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say to me: “Please don’t let them take my newspaper away – I love the feel of a newspaper in my hands.”   Interestingly, most of the over-50 crowd feels that way.  This sentiment will keep the printed newspaper around until our “cohort” (research-speak) loses its sight or its marbles – whichever comes first.

That having been said, tablets and other mobile devices of the future are the long-term saviors for the newspaper industry.  Everything you see in print today is or will be available in the palm of your hand.  Besides being substantially less expensive, digital distribution gives newspapers another shot at the younger audience – the audience it missed when our kids went completely on-line.  The phone companies have taught us to pay for mobile devices, Apple has conditioned us to pay for music, ditto for Kindle and Nook in the book world.  Newspapers will eventually get a reasonable fee for what they provide to you wherever you go.  Count on it.

Digital subscriptions of various kinds and coordinated industry efforts to require payment for content newspapers create will eventually replace a large part of current print revenues.  Content-creators need to be paid or they won’t create – simple as that.  At the moment, too many websites use/borrow/steal newspaper-created content and sell the audience they attract to advertisers – without paying a penny for the content.  What a great business!  Keep the money and don’t pay for the raw material.  Heads I win, tails you lose.  But, the wheels are in motion now for that to change. It’s going to take time and it’s not going to be pretty, but it will happen.

Why do I feel confident about the points above?  The reason is fundamental:  newspapers and their digital adjuncts provide the local, community-based news and information that no one else does – or wants to do.  Most importantly – especially with the murky nature of much on-line content – they do so with seasoned, professional journalists who follow the rules and check the facts.  In today’s uncertain media world, the newspaper is the sole repository for serious, credible, factual, local news, analysis and opinion. Going forward, that’s a good thing for newspapers and newspaper companies.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks, John

The author of this column is John F. Sturm, who been involved with the newspaper industry for the past 20 years, the last 16 as president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America – the industry’s national trade group.