Slashdot Mirror
Internet Kills LA Times National Edition
Doc Ruby writes "The LA Times announced that it is folding its national edition on 12/31/04. The Times spokesperson said the paper's mission has been to reach 'key Washington, D.C., and New York audiences,' and that 'other electronic ways of reaching those audiences became more plentiful.' The folding edition will be replaced by "remote printing" by NewspaperDirect, and their email highlights, Top of the Times. Is this the way all our newspapers will be going?"
Is this the way all our newspapers will be going?"
No, they're just targeting the wrong audience.
why does it matter that an LA paper gets to New York audiences in paper form? Furthermore, if you were in NY or DC, why would you buy the LA Times? What news do that have that local papers don't? (Surely there must be papers with both slants locally).
Let's look at the newspapers which are making a go of it with nationwide printings: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the NY Times.
USA Today - Marketed at travelers who might be interested in a snippet of hometown news. The McDonalds of newspapers.
The Wall Street Journal - Business oriented coverage with a solid conservative editorial page. The newspaper for Republican men.
The New York Times - Amazingly diverse coverage and in depth coverage, with excellent coverage of the Arts and a predictably liberal editorial page. The newspaper for literate urbanites.
The LA Time could have looked for another niche, but they basically are a poor clone of the New York Times. I used to read it quite often when I worked in LA and there is nothing about it that would recommend it over the other Times. Their whole market would be lonesome Southern Californians wanting to keep up with the music scene in Santa Monica.
It'd be nice if another newspaper could challenge the WSJ or the NYT for nationwide coverage. The Chicago Tribune and Washington Post have the potential to do so; I think the Post has the best liberal editorial page in the country, and the Trib is just a solid paper, but there is only so many people in the market for national papers.
The problem [phrusa.org] with the "Los Angeles Times" and the "New York Times" is that most Americans perceive them to be biased. For example, the Abu Ghraib story ran 19+ times on the front pages, but the story about Saddam Hussein's torture of women and children ran far fewer times.
Wow, so they suffer from the same accusations as Slashdot of being too US-centric?
I would have taken it for granted that crimes by the US government would be of greater interest to the US public than crimes by a foreign dictator and would get more US press attention. Guess my vision is too narrow.
Were they upset by the massive coverage of the US elections in those publications compared to coverage of the Norwegian elections as well?
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.