Stacy McCain observes the death throes of the dailies and weeklies as I visit the monthly consumer magazines in their own last days. At least in the glossy four-color industry we knew we were in a business; the daily guys seemed to think they were participating in some kind of church.

Stacy:

That a newspaper is a business -- that it exists to generate profit by providing a product to consumers, in the same sense that a shoe store sells shoes -- is an alien concept to most journalists. Notions like value-added, market share and comparative advantage never enter the minds of most journalists, who conceive of themselves as pursuing a profession that has nothing whatsoever to do with commerce.

So much of what newspapers have done, they've done at the behest of consultants, or by following the conventional wisdom doled out in ASNE conferences and journalism trade publications.

Hey; it worked for a while.

RTWT.

Stacy's observations are, as usual, clear-eyed, and he combines new-media savvy with a deep working knowledge of beltway politics. For what it's worth, the man can also hold his liquor better than most; that's probably how he gets his scoops.

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