Free Newspapers: Another nail in the coffin?

For students (and faculty) attending SUNY Geneseo it might seem like newspapers are free--after all, piles of copies of the New York Times, USA Today and the Democrat and Chronicle are distributed around campus gratis every day, for anyone to pick up (all part of increasingly desperate efforts by newspaper companies to encourage young people to pick up the daily newspaper reading habit). But the fortunate situation here shouldn't disguise the fact that, for most people, newspapers cost money, and have to be paid for ... or at least that's the way it's always been, until now.

More and more, we're seeing the emergence of a whole new class of free daily newspapers that are undercutting the traditional, paid-for newspapers. Of course there are the daily or weekly shoppers that come in the mail, but these are little more than ad sheets. But recent years have seen the rise of a whole new class of free newspapers: the big city "Metro"-type papers (started in Europe) that are increasingly available to bus and train commuters in major metropolitan areas. These free commuter papers -- some started by serious media groups such as the Washington Post Co. and the Tribune Group -- have already spread to big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, and Chicago.

But increasingly, traditional paid-for newspapers are feeling competition in their last real stronghold: the stoops and porches of suburban America, where the delivery of the morning newspaper is still a ritual and a strong tradition. Traditional newspapers are starting to see competition from free daily papers. Bright, breezy free tabloids have already been introduced in San Francisco and Washington. Now it's Baltimore's turn, as the Wall Street Journal (paid registration required) reports. Earlier this month, the Baltimore Examiner, America's newest daily newspaper, hit 250,000 homes in the Baltimore area--instantly allowing it to boast a bigger circulation than the 169-year-old Baltimore Sun.

Of course, as the Benton Comm Policy listserv notes (drawing on the WSJ piece), "no one is sure what that quarter-million papers will really mean to advertisers because they will be delivered unsolicited and at no charge." But at a time when traditional newspapers are under intense pressure, this new development can only cause them further pain.

The Baltimore Sun itself, in reporting on its new competitor, drew attention to the Examiner's possible right-of-center tendencies and its lack of depth. The paper is owned by "conservative billionaire" Philip F. Anschutz and his Denver-based Clarity Media Group Inc. Apparently, a promotional issue delivered to Baltimore doorsteps noted the paper "will include columns by Morton Kondracke, a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel, and former longtime Sun columnist Jules Witcover." That same promo also boasted of the new paper's "devotion to brevity: It said the paper would be housed 'in a convenient package you can read in less than 20 minutes.'" Pointing to the Examiner's sister paper, the Washington Examiner, most of that "paper's local and sports stories were written by staff reporters, but its foreign, national and business pages were filled almost entirely with Associated Press dispatches."

Asks Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, in the WSJ: "Can a mature subscription-based daily paper -- even one as respected as the [Baltimore] Sun -- be vulnerable to an upstart that's giving news away? . . . It really and truly is a very interesting and open question."