Digital Information Ecosystems

5 Is the Printed Newspaper Gamble Crazy?

The arrival of the Internet, along with the possibility of digitalizing information and putting it online, puts forward three questions to economists who study the press:

• – How can the historical economic model migrate?
• – How can innovation be managed?
• – Does the online press produce a more or less significant informational bias than the paper press?

The arrival of digital technology 20 years ago was both hopeful and a great concern. It was hopeful because the press crisis had begun long before. There was a hope to regain lost readers and especially young people. The average age of the press readership was high, very high for the regional daily press. It was also a huge concern because it raised many issues, the two main ones being: how journalists work in this new context, and how the press builds its new business model.

There were 20 years of trial and error, hesitation and sometimes backtracking. And 20 years of financial difficulties because evolving and taking risks is particularly complex, when things are initially going wrong and press companies are not capitalizing well. There were not enough financial reserves to afford the luxury of experimenting, just like in a laboratory (they are emerging as La Provence Innovation, launched in January 2018 by the local daily newspaper of the same name¹) in order to make the right choice. Furthermore, there were not enough financial resources to take the risks inherent in the future of ...