McClatchy Co. recently filed for bankruptcy. The company owns newspapers in North Carolina and across the country such as the News & Observer, the Charlotte Observer, the Miami Herald, and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The news sparked Carolina Journal’s John Trump to write an opinion piece on the decline of local newspapers. Trump writes:

Recent news that McClatchy Co., which owns the News & Observer of Raleigh, filed for bankruptcy protection wasn’t as much a surprise as it was an inevitability. Print newspapers have spent the past several decades in free fall, chained by an ancient business model that makes North Carolina liquor-control laws seem futuristic. Newspaper companies — for the most part — tried and failed to monetize the internet, at the same time giving away proprietary content like koozies at a beer festival.

Newspaper giants like McClatchy have become somewhat of a staple in the industry. Trump explains:

It was a trend starting, oh, 30 years or so ago, for large newspaper companies to gobble up small ones, cutting and consolidating and gorging off the proverbial cash cow, in other words thriving off a vibrant market. Until that cow was picked clean, the leftover bones and gristle barely suitable for stock and broth. 

Many factors led to the decline of the local paper, but perhaps the greatest of all is the failure of these companies to adapt to evolving technologies. Trump writes:

Myriad factors are to blame for newspapers’ collective demise, including the emergence of free advertising through internet sites such as Craigslist and Realtor.com, and a retreat from newspapers by retailers once willing to spend thousands on full-page print ads. Newspapers lacked the foresight to capitalize on internet paywalls and digital subscription, committing much of their budgets to costs associated with newsprint, production, and delivery…

Newspaper companies — big and small — saw the internet more as annoyance than imminent threat. As though that light in the tunnel creeping toward them was from the flashlight of a wandering hobo blocking the tracks as opposed to a 300,000-ton locomotive of technology barreling full-speed ahead to smash a longstanding industry.

It might be time to let go of the traditional newspaper, but never the news. Trump writes:

About three years ago, in a column for Carolina Journal, I wrote that newspapers are necessary and indispensable. My faith isn’t shaken, but I’d now like to replace “newspapers,” with journalism, which — as I said — is crucial in maintaining the ideals of individual freedom and liberty and in upholding the tenets of our Constitution.

As far as traditional print newspapers, I say let them go.

Read the full piece here. Read more from John Trump in Carolina Journal here.