A Response to Hartman's 'Madness' Charge on Detroit's Dead-on-Delivery Plan

By: Anonymous Being a current circulation executive I wish my comments to remain anonymous. But regarding John K. Hartman's E&P column (click on link at right) on the Detroit delivery-cutting announcement this week: Perhaps Professor Hartman is sniffing the same diesel fumes as the Detroit news chiefs.

In case he hasn?t been paying attention, the newspaper reading habit has been on a steady and hastening decline for the past 25 years.

Many newspapers across the country have moved to publishing seven days a week, 365 days a year and have adopted the morning cycle to have the product available every day as long as possible. In a lot of ways our industry has done all it could to make the daily habit the reality.

However the reality is people choose to get their information in many ways beyond newspapers. The habit Professor Hartman speaks of is vanishing faster than a Bush presidential legacy.

The fact that newspaper companies are making bold and innovative moves that should have happened 5 to 10 years ago is sad, yes. Not because it is actually happening, but rather because it took so long.

I have marked this with my colleagues as a monumental moment in our industry. We should all mark it with pride! The eventual measure of this move will ripple through the industry for the rest of its life. However long or short that is.

If the eventual future is a digital one, Detroit's moves are an obvious bridge to that future.

If there is no future for print then it is a bridge to that oblivion.

If our future relates to information dissemination, Detroit will be our heroes leading the way.

We are at a crossroads my friends. We can be dragged kicking and screaming into choosing one of the paths; but we will all be forced to choose a path that moves us away from the current print on paper model. Sorry, but the good old days have been gone for a while now and it has taken an economic implosion to bring about these obvious conclusions. We can embrace it...or cry ourselves to sleep.