Death By Innovation: How Newspapers Ruined Their Own Industry
The death of the newspaper industry is a legend-in-the-making story about managers who oppose change. It’s also a lesson in how to undermine innovation.
Business schools and business books often cite the collapse of Eastman Kodak as a leading example of what happens to companies when their managers refuse to innovate. Kodak dominated print photography for decades and fought against the transition to digital until too late.
“More than 130 years after a ‘not especially gifted’ high school dropout, George Eastman, founded the camera company that dominated photography for most of the 20th century, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. on Thursday,” The Guardian newspaper said on Jan. 19, 2012.
Part of the company eventually came out of bankruptcy and focuses today on a much smaller market: business imaging.
The Kodak failure is minor because it is only one company. For newspapers, the failure is an entire industry. Print newspapers are quickly shrinking staffs, budgets and product sizes even during a growing economy.
Although some seem to have a future online — the New York Times is a notable example — the print versions will cease to exist at some point in the near future. Their costly newsprint, printing plants and…
