Biz sections need to stop writing so much about newspapers

Marek Fuchs of TheStreet.com writes Monday that one of the reasons why so many readers are ditching newspapers is that newspaper business sections spend too much time reporting about the newspaper industry.

Exhibit A, he wrote, is the business section of the New York Times on Monday.

He wrote, “Business news is probably the only sort that readers are willing to pay for online. What also bears mention, however, is how often readers are being asked to pay for news about newspapers in the business pages of newspapers.”

Fuchs later added, “Newspapers have traditionally weighed coverage proportionally toward the important, the worthy of your notice. But newspapers, as I’ve noted for two years with sadness and regret, are increasingly irrelevant.

“Because newspapers are an obsession of those who write them, however, coverage has been disproportionate. Don’t be lulled into thinking it means anything beyond ‘those who put together newspapers are obsessed with the dimming state of their industry.’

“As for those margins, The Business Press Maven wants to make a quick point. For several years, many said that newspapers should go private. They had good margins, this conventional line of thought went, and without Wall Street bothering them they could operate at peace.”

Read more here.