I’ve seen many changes in 30 years as a newspaper journalist. This is the biggest yet | Opinion

My first memory of reading a newspaper is a photo of then-President Gerald Ford wiping away a tear after losing the presidential election in 1976 to Jimmy Carter. I had just turned 6 years old.

I’ve been an avid newspaper reader ever since, and I’ve been a newspaper journalist for nearly 30 years.

My first day on the job as a newspaper journalist was June 24, 1994. That was one year before the availability of the internet — the single-greatest game changer in the news delivery business since the printing press.

As you may have heard by now (probably on the internet), the Idaho Statesman is reducing the number of days of a printed newspaper to three days a week and delivering it by mail. I’m here to tell you — even you die-hard print readers like me — it’s going to be all right.

Here’s the thing: Our “product” isn’t the printed newspaper. The “product” is the journalism we produce, the stories we write, the videos and photos we shoot, the editorials and columns we write. That’s always been the real product.

Over the last 30 years as a newspaper journalist, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the newspaper industry.

I remember working at a paper in Ohio when we first began to put all of our stories on our website without charging readers. (Some of us looked at each other and said, “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”)

When I was the weekend editor at that same newspaper, our print news section at the time was 74 pages. We used every single story that was on the wire that night — every state, national and international story — just to fill the paper.

I remember when airlines would take out full-page ads in the newspaper. When I was on the copy desk, we had instructions to either never run a plane crash story next to an airline ad or completely remove an airline ad if there was a plane crash story anywhere in the paper. Today, of course, airlines don’t advertise in newspapers at all; it’s all done online.

I remember when Craigslist launched, and classified advertising revenue nearly disappeared seemingly overnight. Revenue that paid for reporters, editors and photographers and to keep the lights on.

I remember Oprah Winfrey telling her viewers to cancel their newspaper subscriptions to save money because they could read all the stories for free online.

I remember when JC Penney launched its own “internet store” and drew millions of customers and generated $15 million in revenue in its first year. (I remember thinking at the time, “If customers buy everything online, why would stores advertise in a newspaper?”)

I think what most people don’t understand about the decline in printed newspapers is the migration of advertising revenue from print to digital.

Did you ever wonder how it could cost you only something like $50 a year to get the paper delivered to your house every day? That’s because the expense of producing and delivering that paper was subsidized by the ad revenues.

But the ads — and the ad revenue — migrated to the internet.

Newspaper print advertising revenue peaked at $49 billion in 2006, according to the Pew Research Center, and dropped by more than $40 billion to $6.4 billion in 2022, according to the latest report from Marketing Charts.

Digital advertising, meanwhile, grew from $17 billion in 2006 to $210 billion in 2022, according to the latest report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

That migration of ad revenues meant two things: Newspapers had fewer pages, because there were fewer ads to take up space (it’s the real reason newspapers got smaller), and newspapers had less revenue to do things like hire reporters, editors and photographers and keep the lights on.

I think a lot of people, like me, much prefer reading a printed newspaper. I still prefer turning and scanning the pages over my breakfast cereal and a cup of coffee.

I, like many of you, have been saddened that that experience of reading the morning paper doesn’t take as long as it used to. I’ll often finish the paper before I finish eating my bowl of cereal.

Since the Idaho Statesman eliminated the Saturday print edition, though, I’ve been reading the digital “replica” edition, or eEdition. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about just the Statesman’s website. The eEdition is a pdf-like replica of the newspaper. It looks just like the printed version, except you can zoom in and out and you can click on individual stories to open them in a new window.

It’s much more like the old experience of reading the newspaper.

First of all, there’s just way more content in it. It has updated news stories from the night before that we couldn’t get in by our early print deadline, and in addition to the replicated pages of that day’s paper, there are “Extra Extra” sections, that include national stories, international stories, stories on politics, more sports, more opinion, business stories, entertainment, movies, books, music, streaming, home improvement, uplifting feature stories, more puzzles. And baseball box scores. Yes, baseball box scores.

The eEdition reminds me of the good old days when I used every story on the wire to fill a 74-page section.

Forget about finishing the paper before breakfast. You could spend hours reading the eEdition through dinner.

And, yes, the eEdition is ready first thing in the morning. Since the Statesman’s printed paper will be delivered with the mail later in the day, I’ll be relying on the eEdition each morning over my bowl of cereal.

For sure, it’s not the same as reading the paper product, but it comes pretty darn close, for those of us who like the layout of a newspaper page.

In many ways, it’s even superior to the printed product. (I will sometimes find myself looking at the corner of a newspaper page to check what time it is or try to zoom in on a photo in print.)

I even read the eEdition on my phone. That’s because you can tap a story on the page, and it opens up a new window with just that story. Close the window, and you’re back on the newspaper page. If you’re reading it on your phone, I found the best way to access it is through the Idaho Statesman app and just clicking on “eEdition” at the bottom.

The reading experience on a tablet or computer screen is even better.

If you haven’t done so already, you can activate your digital access at idahostatesman.com/activate.

Now that the Statesman is printing three times a week and delivering by mail later in the day, I will be spending even more time with the eEdition.

I encourage you to do the same, especially you die-hard print readers like me.