Ok, not really.  The chairman of the Associated Press actually quoted a line from the movie classic “The Network” when he said that newspaper owners are “mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”  This headline caught my eye since our lovable Mojoloco mascot, Flamehead, also borrows this phrase at the end of our video.  (Read the entire article here).

Anyway, I continue to be surprised at the thick-headedness of the newspaper industry. Why, when their business model has been broken several times over, do they continue to fight vehemently to keep it?  It’s puzzling, really.

The suits are angry because Google and other news aggregators are linking to stories on their web sites.  Their point is that Google doesn’t own the content, yet they benefit and profit by linking to it.  Of course, Google’s point is that they’re driving traffic to the newspaper web sites.  It’s a bitter feud.

This is made worse by the fact that, according to the NAA, 2008 was the worst year ever for the newspaper industry with print ad revenue falling 17.7% and online ad revenue dropping 1.8%.

But the bigger issue is: why didn’t these newspaper suits see this coming in the first place?  You’d think they would.  If they had, they might’ve been able to grow and evolve with their market, rather than be left behind.  But then, category leaders rarely perceive when a sea change is occurring until it’s too late.  That’s why it’s the laughable upstart that grabs the market and leaves the leader in the dust.  Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Google, just to name a few from recent years.

The issue of linking to and profiting from content on other web sites is really a moot point.  Good or bad, right wrong…it’s irrelevant.  It’s just the way it is in the Web 2.0 world…being “mad as hell” isn’t going to win your consumers back.

Google chief Eric Schmidt, addressing a group of newspaper chairmen the day after the AP chair expressed his anger, said “we have to embrace what users want together and by doing that I think we can win big.”

He’s right.  This is a consumer-centric society.  Successful brands give the consumer what they want, how they want it, and when & where they want it.  Brands that cling to an outdated model and expect the consumer to bend and bow simply because they’re an “established market leader” are losing ground.

What they’ve failed to realize is that it’s really the consumer who is “mad as hell and not going to take this anymore” and have gone elsewhere to find their news…finding solace in the likes of Google News.  When news is available online for free, then the idea of paying a newspaper to deliver the news in print is suddenly irrelevant.  And irrelevance is akin to sudden death.