Light at the end of the newspaper tunnel?

Last night I read the 2007 book The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s a quick read and an inspiring book, but one passage certainly stood out to me:

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can’t see it. At the same time, the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn’t any.

If you work at a big city newspaper, you can see that there’s no light at the end of that career-choice tunnel. Circulation is dropping, and it’s going to drop even faster. Most papers have little chance of replacing their traditional business with an online alternative. As a result, every day at most papers is going to be just a little bit worse than the day before. Every day you stay is a bad strategic decision for your career because every day you get better at something that isn’t that useful – and you fall another day behind others who are learning something more useful. The only reason to stay is the short-term pain associated with quitting. Winners understand that taking the pain now prevents a lot more pain later.

It’s nor fair to judge two paragraphs without context of the whole book, but I felt I should share anyway. To me, the point of the book was that it’s not worth doing something unless you’re willing to push yourself to be the best. It’s much better to be the best at one thing that to be pretty good at several things.

My digital focus in 2010 for the Des Moines Register is simple – stop trying to add more and more features to the web site, and start focusing on doing a small number of things better than anyone else.

As for Godin’s advice on getting out of newspapers, I can’t disagree. We’ve heard about the end of printed newspapers for a long time. If you’re a journalist whose skills are exclusive to the print product, it’s time to start learning some digital skills. Or get out.