Danish newspapers are in a crisis which could get even worse when a
parliamentary majority soon agrees on changes to state media
support.
So far danish newspapers have received 400m Danish kroner (€53.6m) a
year from the state, but the government has announced a renegotiation
of the support and says it is unsustainable to keep supporting the
printed press. The government now wants to support editorial content
and digital news distribution.
The change to state media support will see the money being shifted
from newspapers to online media. Newspapers and media experts warn this
is another nail in the coffin of an already dying printed media
industry and point out it is also a democratic problem because
newspapers are the main providers of news.
Lasse Jensen is one of the media experts who is worried. He is a
grand old man in Danish journalism and the editor and presenter of
Danish Radio’s magazine program ‘People and Media‘, hosting critical
debates on new and traditional media.
“The daily papers are bleeding. It’s the same everywhere, but out of
all the Nordic countries Denmark has so far been hardest hit. Danish
newspapers have faced major redundancies and cuts, all excess fat is
long gone. Many newspapers are reaching the limit of what they can take
economically. Getting less state media support will be very serious for
many of them,” he says.
Support plurality
Dagbladet Information is one of Denmark’s newspapers which is
currently the biggest recipient of state media support. It was founded
as an illegal news agency during World War II. The paper is not part of
a major media company. It is owned by a limited company whose small
shareholders do not receive any dividend. In addition to state media
support, Dagbladet Information also receive a special state diversity
grant only awarded to a few, small national newspapers which would not
be able to function without it.
Information’s Director, Mette Davidsen-Nielsen, thinks the state
media support should be used to secure future output of the kind of
journalism which is lacking in today’s media landscape because it is
heavy on resources. Dagbladet Information creates just that kind of
journalism Mette Davidsen-Nielsen points out:
“90 percent of our content is produced in-house with unique
journalistic focus on social issues, politics and culture. Ours is a
considerable contribution to media plurality. That is why we get more
state media support. Without it our budget wouldn’t add up,” she
says.
Mette Davidsen-Nielsen feels Dagbladet Information has come far in
its necessary transformation from printed paper to a modern multimedia
company with a newspaper, a publishing business, a graphic production
company, online services, a magazine publication and debating forums
with readers’ contributions.
But nobody – including Information – has solved the Gordian knot:
how to get readers to pay for online journalistic content.
“It’s a basic problem in the whole of the Western world: finding a
way to make Internet users pay for unique content,” she says.
Free online news
News are moving online, it’s a global trend, and a clear majority of
readers are not ready to pay for online news. 71 percent of readers of
the Politiken newspaper answered “no” to the question “would you pay
for news online?”. And when readers disappear, advertisers go too.
Lasse Jensen thinks Danish newspapers have been asleep at the wheel
while the big Swedish and Norwegian media companies Bonnier and
Schibsted have been quicker to adapt.
“Many Danish newspapers were doing very well, so they were slow to
start moving their business model in a more digital direction, and they
have allowed readers to get used to accessing news online without
having to pay,” he says.
Meanwhile the media consumption among many, especially younger,
people is to an increasing degree based around social media like
Facebook and Google, which do not produce their own news.
Lasse Jensen predicts the newspapers’ decline will continue and that
quality journalism will suffer even worse conditions in coming years.
He thinks this is a problem for democracy:
“There is good reason to be worried on behalf of democracy.
Newspapers deliver seven in ten news stories and as such are crucial to
the journalistic chain of life. But newspapers‘ resources have reached
bottom and their ability to deliver the critical journalism which a
democracy needs is much reduced,” says Lasse Jensen.
The volume of news is exploding but fewer investigations lead to
fewer scoops and readers don’t remember them as well as they used to.
These are the preliminary results from a new study of Danish media
carried out by Anker Brink Lund, professor of media management at the
Copenhagen Business School, CBS. He shows how the volume of news has
more than doubled in the past ten years, while more than three quarters
of news stories are “repeats, theft and borrowing” – i.e. not unique
news.
When journalists must make twice as many stories as they used to
plus new versions of other media’s stories, there is less time left to
investigate your own news. 71 percent of original journalism comes from
newspapers, the study shows.
Minister wants to support online media
That is probably not enough to convince Minister for Culture Uffe
Elbæk (the Danish Social-Liberal Party) that newspapers should continue
to receive the current 400m Danish kroner (€53.6m) state media support.
The government and the Minster for Culture want to give digital media
some of the money, and it looks like more and more media will have to
share a little less money. The government has also asked media to pay
40m Danish kroner (€5.4m) more in so-called payroll tax – an industry
duty for newspapers and other businesses – as compensation for being
exempt from VAT.
“Some newspapers will manage and prosper. Others might go under and
disappear. And new names will disseminate news in new ways which we
can’t yet imagine,” the Minister for Culture wrote in a commentary
ahead of negotiations. He recognises the crucial role newspapers play
in Denmark’s media cycle by “making the first important dig of the news
day” and by delivering at least two thirds of the news which make it
into broadcast media. But he finds it unsustainable to support the
distribution of printed newspapers.
A danger of niche news distribution
The state support must go to the production of editorial content,
says Uffe Elbæk. A committee appointed by the previous government to
take a fresh look at state media support from a digital perspective
came to the same conclusion. The committee recommended making future
state media support a support for democracy.
But while the committee wanted to support democracy by giving the
big players in the newspaper business more or less the same media
support as before, the Minister for Culture believes democracy is
better served by making it easier for smaller online media to access
the market place.
The minister highlights new American publications like the
Huffington Post, Politico and Daily Beast which have emerged from
nowhere to become important national players in a short amount of time,
because the production and spread of news online is so easy and
relatively cheap.
Lasse Jensen does not have much faith in the Minster for Culture’s
plans.
“We are five million Danes, there are 313 million Americans and they
have an even bigger language area. Nothing points to Denmark being able
to develop a national online news publication like the Huffington Post.
Supporting small online media creates a narrow niche news distribution.
It does not contribute in a comprehensive way to the public debate like
newspapers do,” says Lasse Jensen.
Apart from direct state support, Danish media also benefit in other
ways like not paying VAT. And public service TV and radio get billions
of kroner every year from license fees. Parliament has just reach a
wide agreement on the future distribution of the license money. The
state broadcaster DR and the TV2 regions (eight regional non-profit TV
stations) will receive 140m Danish kroner (€18.7m) extra, and the
Danish film industry gets more than 100m Danish kroner (€13.1m) in the
coming period.
