Slashdot Mirror
Are Newspapers Doomed?
Ponca City, We love you writes "James Surowiecki has an interesting article in the New Yorker that crystalizes the problems facing print newspapers today and explains why we may soon be seeing more major newspapers filing for bankruptcy, as the Tribune Company did last week. 'There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up,' writes Surowiecki, but the 'peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular,' with the blogosphere piggybacking on traditional journalism's content. Surowiecki imagines many possible futures for newspapers, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to deep-pocketed patrons. 'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime — intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on — and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'"
Bring on Googlezon!
This is terrible. You can't put websites at the bottom of the parrot cage!
Once most of the people who grew up reading newspapers die or just stop reading them, it's inevitable that the print form will cease to exist -- as we know it. I see a lot more prints of news websites than I see newspaper clippings, so the need for SOME of it to hit paper is still there. It's just that most people don't want the whole thing delivered physically any more. They still want the content, but most of it never leaves the digital form, so while NEWSPAPERS may die, journalism does not necessarily follow suit.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime â" intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on â" and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'
really? I thought that vanished in 1999
There has been very little fact checking or true investigation in reporting in quite some time, and I'm afraid you can't blame the internet for that.
Newspapers will not die though. Most of their stories are sourced from the same organizations which source on-line content (reuters, associated press, et al), and they will continue on in their ineptitude and failure to fact check or investigate, as usual.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
When was the last time you saw a town crier?
last I checked my local newspaper was easily 50% to 70% just ads
and the content trashy with alot of spelling mistakes
at least on the web we can adblock the noise
...I honestly would expect a death to printed pornography before the death of the printed newspaper.
OK, newspapers have their problems, but the biggest problem with the Tribune is that Sam Zell loaded it up with an unmanageable level of debt when he bought it.
The Tribune is more an example of how raiders like Zell enrich themselves during a leveraged buyout than an example of a failing newspaper.
Ad revenue cannot and should not sustain newspapers or television. We really need to figure out what is important to have in our society and start ponying up money to support it. I would like to see more money going to services like PBS and NPR to expand that quality of programming into a local printed publication. I have to admit that I very rarely read a paper, but I do listen to NPR pretty much every time I am in the car and I recognize that the bulk of their programming comes from news discovered by print journalists.
Go ahead and tax people for it and give the papers away. If there are no reporters out there to dig up the interesting stories that don't qualify for the sensationalist 10PM news shows then we are in danger of losing that part of our history. It's time people stop thinking about themselves, and making a quick buck on ads by catering to the lowest common denominator and start thinking about what they can do to add value to the quality of life for the entire human race.
Newspaper writer writes about how newspaper needs more money.... Nothing to see here
The newspapers could adapt to changing technology. Although, it looks like they are already. I see more and more newspapers becoming online-only, for better or worse. The "major" ones will probably continue print editions, but they'll be only on Sundays or something. How this will effect people who can't get the Internet, I don't know, but it's one of the few ways they can stay profitable.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Newspapers have been declared dead every few years for the past 15 or so. When I went to university, one of our projects was to come up with suggestions on how newspapers could leverage all the new tech (Internet was new at that time) so they could "survive".
Look, they're still around. I guess they'll still be here in another 15 years.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What we are really seeing is the death of the single media outlet.
In this age you can't just work one media. Newspapers as they were are gone. TV news as it was is gone. Web news even will cease to exist.
What we will see is more of the type of CNN MSNBC were you have journalists that do blog articles, video news reports and print articles all at the same time.
In the new age you're a content creator whatever media the content is transmitted by
internet. Once micropayments came along (which back then was always real soon), everything on the internet was supposed to become pay-for. Every website you visit would deduct a fraction of a penny from your browser or something. This would be "necessary" to pay for inherent costs. What they didn't count on was that on the internet, oftentimes, if someone doesn't provide it free, someone else is willing to step in and grab that audience.
Also, since many newspapers are little more than repackaged AP and Reuters news, looking at the NY Times for guidance - I don't know what their value proposition is supposed to be. This past election cycle, because I paid attention to politics - I have seen how the old media doesn't even pretend to present the world as it is but just their packaged version of it - they do a bad job of reporting things of niche interest - 3rd parties, other people running other than the "top 2" candidates that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, etc.
Considering this, what value do they bring to the table? If they don't carry the most general of news, someone else will. And since they don't cover anything in depth (not every interest in audience, by nature), most easy to find forums, blogs, etc will cover a subject deeper and be more informative.
All I see is someone bickering that their pre-packaged, repackaged jack-of-all-subjects, master-of-none is becoming obsolete by the fact that it's not the pre-1980s anymore when people relied on print to stay informed.
I get two newspapers each week.
One is going broke, one is doing fine.
One is skimmed, one is read front to back.
One is full of AP content, one has no AP content.
One is full of news I have already seen online, one is full of fresh stories.
Most newspapers are trying to churn out stories for the AP, hoping that their (version of the) story gets picked up and brings in some money. Meanwhile they have to pay for the expensive incoming AP stories, which they use liberally in their papers to justify the cost, filling their paper with barely readable, highly edited and condensed, dreck that has been widely available elsewhere.
Newspapers that will survive are covering the stories that no one else is covering.
Newspapers used to be the main source of aggregated of information about current events; they were few alternatives. Now we have a wide variety of sources for the same information; and don't need a daily paper to satisfy our information needs. As a result, the business model will change
You'll still need services such as the AP; but how the information is used will change. I would expect to see the multi-channel news organizations who can combine television, radio, and internet (blogs, websites, streaming data) to be replace newspapers as the primary daily news source.
As a side note, I expect more DCMA take down notices as organizations seek to protect their IP from being redistributed by outlets that don't pay for it.
I'd also expect to see local papers thrive - they can cover stories of limited interest beyond their communities, and deliver targeted ads for businesses. In addition, I'd expect specialty papers that target specific audiences (such as sports fans) to thrive because they can do more in depth and broader coverage of a narrow topic than say the AP. And of course, USA Today because every major hotel in the US buys a ton of them.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The comment above points to ad revenue drying up as one cause for the demise of print news. While reduced ad revenue may cause newspapers to fold (pun intended), it is not the cause of the reduced circulation and therefore lower ad revenue.
Content is everything and as our society has become more politically polarized, the bias in American news media has become more and more obvious. This leads potential readers (like me) to simply not subscribe. Just as when I see movies with certain politically vocal stars, I simply avoid the box office. This is America and actors can be advocates and newspapers can be political advertisements, but choices have consequences and I sometimes wonder if these groups understand that you can't diss half of your audience without consequences.
I am a computer guy, but I hate to read long pieces on line. I would actually like to subscribe to a regional paper if I really did think that I was being offered unbiased news. So although I think that online media contributes to the demise, once again I do not think it is the cause.
The simplest cause for the demise of newspapers: content (or lack thereof).
Bail out.
er... two.
Investigative newspaper reporting died over a decade ago. Newspapers today are nothing more than a collection of press releases.
The investigative reporters are now almost exclusively online. You no longer need a distribution network, and printing facilities. A good investigative reporter can setup a web site fairly easily, and if he/she is any good, the ad dollars will follow.
Take thetruthaboutcars.com - those guys called the demise of the American autos years ago - way before mainstream media. They were able to perform the in-depth financial analysis that the journalists at major newspapers simply ignored until recently.
Investors know this as well. Not many investors I know read newspapers any more for news. By the time the newspapers report it; the information is almost useless.
Goodbye newspapers. A generation of kids is growing up seeing the newspaper as obsolete as the typewriter.
-ted
Nobody's saying they'll just go "poof" and just cease to exist, one day. There most certainly will be newspapers around in 15 years time. But how many?
I used to read a newspaper in the metro, and even got the paper delivered to my mailbox; but it's even easier to just read it on one of my 24" screens instead of having to go down the stairs to pick it up. And in the metro I just read the news on my $smartphone.
From the article:
>>>Papers now seem to be the equivalent of the railroads at the start of the twentieth century--a once-great business eclipsed by a new technology.
And the government solution to this was Amtrak, a centralized monopoly over passenger rail that sucks billions out of taxpayer wallets. Government will likely do the same with newspapers and introduce an "Ampaper" to keep alive an industry that should disappear and be replaced with online reporting.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I work for a company that produces local newspapers, I'm not sure if they will die as quickly. How else will advertisers reach a local audience? How else can anyone read local news? Does eveyone who reads the news have the internet?
I also work for a newspaper, and I was shown stories from the advent of radio how radio was going to kill newspapers. Then TV was going to kill newspapers. Then the internet was going to kill newspapers. IBM also said computers would give us a paperless office.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I don't think we need to look much further than the most recent Iraq war to see how dangerous the current system is. All of our major media outlets are owned by very large corporations, many with defense interests. The press has always curried the favor of the deep pocket interests of the day. It's very instructive to look back at old press clippings on topics where we today know what the facts were ("Was the war a bad idea?" "Was this person corrupt?" "Will this harmless additive kill us?") and see how calm, certain, and forthright the pressmen were in their defense of the special interest. They have the air of the level-headed man of reason, putting our concerns to rest. Of course, they were dead fucking wrong but hey, we're all human, right?
It's true that the current blog model uses press articles and news reports as talking points to begin their own articles, those articles foster discussion threads, etc. If those dry up, more original reporting will need to be done.
But you know what? We've already reached that point with the mainstream media. Investigative journalism is expensive, nobody wants to pay for it. Most news articles these days are just repackaged press releases. Nobody wants to rock the boat and lose their jobs. If Bush says that Iraq has WMD's, if your editor tells you the organization is backing the administration's line because it's good for business, then you're writing about the WMD's. If you won't, there's a thousand other cub reporters just dying to get their shot at the big leagues.
I predict what we'll eventually see is all news sourcing going directly online. There's a lot of capital tied up in a traditional media operation be it the printing presses, distribution chain, and the useless overhead of the parent corporation that demands the news outlet be a profit center. Crossing my fingers, I hope we see a shakeout where traditional media outlets cannot compete with the price model of the net, they fall apart, and what replaces the AP feed is a loose federation of small-time private journalists who have small enough operations they can make their money off of the banner ads. They would peer with other sources to create their own wire feed and we see a more economic business model.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Since the advent of the internet, we are no longer subjected to have biased news of television, radio, or newspapers. If we want to have an argument with anyone, there are plenty of on-line forums to do it on, without getting censored by a party line of a particular newspapers editor. The age of buying influence by what is printed in the press is doomed.
Add to that, the internet also allows people to follow news from around the world, and are no longer restricted to the news the local/national newspapers (or other media) wish to push out. And if it's specialist news like on Slashdot, then it will always be more current on-line than any print media.
Newspapers are dying, but they only have themselves to blame for not keeping up with the modern world.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
That, as the summary seems to indicate, may actually be more of a problem. Newspapers took on more and more advertisements in order to keep reader costs down (and/or line their own pockets), which was likely to their detriment, in my opinion.
Just yesterday, I fired off an e-mail to Wired, explaining that I would no longer be subscribing to their magazine. I had recently finished the Oct 2008 issue (I'm a bit behind), and I was quite annoyed at the amount of advertising in it. After I finished reading, I went through and counted all the ads: of 126 pages, about 117 were ads. More than 50% of the magazine was advertisements, some set up to look like it was regular content.
My wired subscription was cheap--$10, I think, for ten issues. A good deal, at least at the time. The renewal cards I've been getting offer the same thing. But I am not willing to put up with so much advertisement, even at that price. I would be far more likely to re-subscribe if the magazine were 25% ads and $20/ten issues.
While it's been rare that I pick up a newspaper lately, they seem to have fallen to much of the same--rarely do you get a full page of news, it's usually at least a quarter of ads if not more. Add in some sibling posts' comments on the cost and high use of AP, and the newspaper doesn't even become worth the cost it is now. Considering the popularity of Adblock, I'm not the only one annoyed by the prevalence of advertisement, and as time goes by much of my generation will join me in that sentiment.
Traditional modern newspapers have always been ad sponsored, just like television and radio.
What is killing newspapers is the rise in advertising cost versus a dwindling readership.
I used to use newspapers to advertise my old cleaning business, and 20 years ago, they
worked fine.
Professional Cleaners - xxx-xxxx (phone number) - cost $20.per month, published daily.
Today :
Professional Cleaners - xxx-xxxx costs $340.00 per month, published everyday.
Simple economics, they priced themselves out of the market all the
while losing readership. Yes, the cleaning business was a side-line,
not my real job. That $340.00 dollars represented income from 4 clients
per month. So basically 4 homes were cleaned for free each month.
Not a good business practise.
It is just a question of time.
I did something probably few Slashdotters have done this week, subscribed to a newspaper. The local rag in my area runs $60/yr and had fairly decent content so figured it was worth it.
The way I see it, any content, online or offline that's worth paying for will still get my money.
...in bed
I agree. I bet that most people stick with newspapers because they are a "Tradition" or habit they've gotten used to.
If the newspaper has good quality, people will want to read it, provided the cost is reasonable... how does any newspaper justify 2-2.5$(wsj, financial times) even if they office some good insight.... newspapers have to change from reporting the news to analyzing and providing good opinion, consequences and literary language... Everyone knows the news from TV the night before, or within 10 minutes of it happening online... many newspapers still do good in India because they identified the above and changed their format and content to suit the same... The reader should feel like reading cover to cover trying to understand everything and feeling good and informative about it... quality value at a reasonable price ( a quarter, like many papers already are)...
The Tribune group collapsed because of a load of toxic debt they could not refinance.
It is quite fashionable for failing businesses to ignore their own poor performance. Instead they blame it on unforseen circumstances and present themselves as innocent victims of a global cataclysm.
A side effect of this fashion is that some commenators, like this article, are writing off whole industries and business models. They augur from the business collapses. Unfortunately these auguries ignore the more mundane reasons, too much debt, bad profit projections, in favour of some system wide collapse.
IMO the last few years, say 2005 have been mainly credit driven. So although there is undeniable shrinking of advertising revenues, this shrinking is dwarfed by the awful reality of spending shrinking back to sensible levels.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
I won't be surprised if, in a years time or less, we start to see bankruptcies and closures here. At least one US-owned firm is making cut backs like never before, with announcements of job cuts being made on a weekly basis. Many of the issues raised by the New Yorker article could be applied to the local press in Britain.
While some national titles, in particular the Guardian and the Telegraph, recognised the potential of the web in the late 90s, most British papers either treated their websites as hobbyist side projects or didn't bother at all. The situation was worse in the local sector, where despite massive consolidation taking place over the 1990s large firms found themselves without the skills or the insight to make the web work. Sites were generally a slow mess, designed by managers who don't understand what the internet is and failing to take advantage of the content provided by the said paper's employees. Only now are some sites working with Google News, and still many local sites look practically amateurish compared to national alternatives.
This failure to establish a strong web presence early on has squandered any relevance they had with an entire generation of people. The BBC were allowed to become the destination of choice for almost everything; Gumtree is doing for British classified what Craigslist did in the states. I don't know anybody who, on looking for a new flat, would pick up the evening paper. Similarly I don't know anyone who'd look at the said paper's website.
Now this all comes at the same time as advertising revenues are consistently falling by 20 per cent month on month. The other day, when flicking through a major regional title, I spotted a full page ad for a tiny off-licence. They are getting desperate.
The sad and scary thing is if we lose the Birmingham Mail, the Bristol Evening Post, the London weeklies, there would be no good source of news on local government and services anywhere in Britain. Even with the scrimp on resources, regional papers are brilliant at keeping tabs on the goings on at town halls. Remove that check and balance and councillors may start to believe that no one is watching them. And there is simply no one else to come in to take their place - the BBC isn't allowed and ITV can't afford it. If local papers die, then the public sphere might just die with it.
I used to subscribe to papers, but I cancelled them all because they are all liberal rags. I don't need people preaching to me all the time, so I just said see ya later. I can't count how many right leaning people have cancelled the NYT, Washpost, etc, or just don't even buy them. I guess that strategy to move left and pick up the liberal masses has a problem. Liberals don't want to pay for much, not even their own workers, and so, liberal papers are failing. On the other hand, if I do reasonably well, I will probably pony up the extra money and subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The web site is excellent, the writing is good, and i hear things about industry leaders and doers, rather than the progressives who seem to want to tear it all down.
This is my sig.
Most people don't realize this but classified adds are going way down for the past years. A few websites offers the service for free and this was a big revenue stream for most papers.
....SOMEONE has to create the content. The blogosphere (and hell, even slashdot) mostly points to someone else's content. Joe Blogger isn't going to be doing any in-depth investigations and that is the foundation of journalism. One can look at how superficial how TV journalism is to print journalism...and then realize that the blogosphere offers insight and nothing else.
Content isn't going to come with compensation.
If newspapers survive on advertising revenue and so do Google and television, then doesn't it stand to reason that they should also be suffering from a drop in revenue?
btw, here in Melbourne, Australia, some of the local big-name newspapers are now *outsourcing* sub-editor jobs and others to *India*. Now that's *interesting*. Wonder if the NYT/WSJ will try that if they haven't already?
One reason why I don't buy newspapers is the large format. Papers like the Boston Herald are more reader-friendly (magazine type format) and are easier to peruse. Try reading The Globe or NY Times on a plane, with someone right next to you.
If they change the print format, I'd buy them.
The print format itself is otherwise a leftover from older times, and needs to go away.
We'veindeed reached the moment at which Internet news is putting print news out of business. The problem is that much of the genuine value found in print publications hasn't been ported to the new medium. Most web-only publications are making money, but still can't afford to hire trained journalists or underwrite investigative journalism. The reason you see less worthwhile investigative work in print is that these units were easy targets when newspapers cut staff.
We're near the tipping point at which online news sites need to hire or acquire the talent that supported print publications. The recession will speed the demise of newspapers, making lots of talent available. Can web companies afford to seize this opportunity and invest in staff? It can happen. The Politico is one example of this opportunity.
But the bottom line is that there are a number of lean years ahead for journalists, who will likely face pay cuts as they shift from print to online.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
There's nothing I like to do better on Saturday and Sunday morning than sit down on the lounge floor and leaf them them. There's no buttons to click, no viruses to be afraid of, no cookies or anyone records to keep track of what I read and how often. I don't have to worry about whether or not flash is enabled or worry about my browser (or desktop) crashing while I'm reading. That there aren't 1001 "comments" from other readers (of which 99.99% are drivel) is just a bonus.
I don't get dry eyes from flicker or the glare of the screen, no poisonous chemicals in batteries to make them work, etc.
During the week, I can sit down and read the paper over breakfast (because it gets delivered.) I don't have to worry about coffee getting into the keyboard or needing to be careful about splashes of milk near it either. What's more, I can look down at the paper, which also happens to mean it is easy for me to look at what I'm doing with my food. I can then pickup said paper and read it on the train, in the toilet or if I'm feeling lucky, whilst walking.
The stories I read in the various big papers here are better than anything I can find in web based equivalents. They often get "exclusives" and the quality of journalism makes slashdot look like a high school project.
For those who think that the "advertising model" is doomed and they should find a better business model - guess what? nearly every "free" service you have online (slashdot, sourceforge, google), is funded through advertising revenue. If the printed media starts to feel the heat through a drop in advertising revenue, doesn't it stand to reason that other avenues will too? In that regard, maybe the printed media is the "canary in the coalmine" for other advertising based business models...
Now after I'm done reading the paper, I can recycle it, burn it (for warmth), cut bits out, archive it and know that I can still read it in 20 years, and so on. Printed media is vastly underrated.
Newspapers and the editors who run them have long been bought by different people.
Newspapers can increase circulation by ditching the propaganda and carrying factual content. I have no sympathy.
This ignores the point of the article - that the bedrock, actual "sources" of news such as the NYT are also in dire financial straits. Once they are gone (and by that I don't mean "cease to exist," merely that the quality nosedives because there are fewer investigative journalist slots) then all the secondary news sources you decry - and their readers - will be high and dry. The blogs and forums are just cud-chewers. Somebody still has to do the interviews and take the photos for them to ruminate over.
In my local paper, there are eight stories above the fold. One of them is Double murderer to get another chance. Another chance? Thats objective? The whole paper reads like an editorial page.
Its not the technology, its the content.
It can be go tiem now plees?
News, at least in the U.S. died a long time ago.
Now news is more about finding an outlet that validates one's political viewpoints. Thank heavens I can watch BBC news for my world news and more relevant to this thread, read the Economist for my news needs. The Economist is print and I gladly plunk down the 120.00 to have it delivered.
The death of newspapers and print is due partly to the digital revolution but also due to the fact that the product just sucks ass. Compare Time magazine of today to Time magazine of 20 years ago.
And broadcast news? It's very sad when Britney Spers psychological state warrants more news coverage than genocides.
Edward R Murrow would be rolling in his grave...... if he weren't cremated.
Ad revenue is only one of 3 issues causing the collapse of the newspaper industry. While classified ads and print ads provided the bulk of newspaper's income, there are two other factors involved in recent problems. Think of advertising revenue as the "incoming problem" - here are the "outgoing problems"
Home delivery is the weak link in distribution. The Boston Globe, for instance, maintains a huge fleet of delivery trucks that bring papers not just around the city but throughout coastal New England. I'm not sure of the exact costs, but it has to be millions per year, to deliver dead trees to people's doors and stores. This is a hold-over from a time when media was a one-to-many form of distribution, it has almost no relevance to today's media markets or readers. Netbooks or e-readers shipped with custom software (NYTimes "Reader) or just the local paper's website as a landing page would make more sense.
The third problem is the readers and our changing habits. Most people don't have the time to read a newspaper or won't make the time - for younger people it interferes with Facebook & gaming, for middle-aged people it interferes with being overworked on that adjustable-rate mortgage train. The only reliable newspaper readers in demographic terms are retirees.
All of this boils down to one thing, one thing most papers have missed completely: relevance.
How to take massive institutions, industrial-era institutions if you've seen the presses running, and make them into nimble, 21stCentury, Internet-centric businesses? It's a tough nut to crack and so far I'm not seeing any of them actually make it work. It's weird because I personally love reading the news from a broadsheet but it's an anachronism when the entire world's news is available at my fingertips, 24/7. The world simply does not wait for the morning print run. When news impacts "after deadline" the morning newspaper is already out of date when it lands in the driveway.
-Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Less advertising revenue just means they'll have to charge more to subscribers. The higher price will reduce demand, further shrinking subscription revenue and reducing the amount their remaining advertisers are willing to pay. However, at some point an equilibrium will be reached, assuming the demand doesn't shrink to the point where it's impossible to turn a profit.
To quote Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters, "Print is dead."
25 years too early, but it was a very insightful prediction nonetheless. The problem newspapers are facing is that they have historically filled a very specific niche: rapid distribution of largely perishable information, i.e. "news". In the beginning, advances in communication technology only helped newspapers, as they were expensive and only a well funded entity could afford to transmit and receive information over long distances. TV and radio were the first to threaten newspapers, but they actually ended up just exploiting a new market for the most part--- "live" news--- as they're limited to the relatively low-speed communication inherent to the spoken word. Newspapers held an advantage purely in bandwidth. Large quantities of printed information on cheap pulp delivered to your door beat anything TV or radio could offer in sheer volume of information.
Then came the publicly available Internet. Essentially at one stroke, newspapers were pushed to second place in bandwidth. Even a 56Kbps dialup connection could feed the printed word faster and in greater volume than a printing press. Newspapers were doomed, but they didn't know it yet. It took some time for people to catch on. I personally put the tipping point about four years ago. For decades the local newspaper where I live has run an annoying telemarketing division to badger people into getting the local paper. About four years ago, I started answering their entreaties with "no thanks, I already read that paper online for free". These telemarketers, who historically had a scripted response to any excuse, could only respond "oh, OK, thanks for your time"! When a Los Angeles Times telemarketer can't come up with a reason for you to subscribe, the jig is up.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Newspapers are not doomed, they will change from paper to another media. For now the alternate print is the Internet and cell phones. next will be large screen digital devices which will be reusable. like the Kindle from amazon, you can buy a device to read the new and your subscription would automatically be updated everyday.
If this isn't the case, than television news companies will buy the papers, so they'll have printed news.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
You reversed the cause and effect.
Objectivity has been dead at newspapers for a while now. When major newspapers (think L.A. Times) withhold stories to influence elections they can no longer be perceived as being objective. I canceled my subscription to my local newspaper when the local sports reporter kept throwing in national politics when reporting about the local high school games. Newspapers are dead and dying ... and I will contend that they committed suicide.
It would be terrible to loose all these papers that reprint Associated Press stories and push the agenda of the rulers on their readership. death to any system that relies on controlling the distribution system rather then offering a better product.
It's because, like NBC, CBS and ABC, they keep backing one political side. They assume their audience feels the same way they do, and consider anyone who doesn't believe their way, idiots.
Where's that brought us?
We just voted for a guy *only* because of his skin color- we didn't ask any questions. That's as stupid as NOT voting for a guy, based on skin color alone.
We've empowered the Democratic machine, that loves to tax and loves to spend and now they get at least 4 years to do both with impunity. Bring on the trillions! Let's feed our side!
And the news organizations, all but FoxNews and a handful of papers still being objective, are all losing money. The dinosaur media is, too.
And one fine day...they'll be gone, and the world will return to a sense of balance. For journalist school newbies will no longer look starry-eyed and say, "I want to be a reporter, so I can take down a president."
(Their true calling is to report the news.)
In these cases, I don't see that it has anything to do with perceived value to the consumer. It has mostly to do with the profits perceived by the operators, owners, and employees. For instance the internet companies of 90's were infected with people who just wanted to get rich quick. Developers who wanted to code a little and play a lot. Sales people to paid based not on revenues genuinely created, but a fictitious revenue that they got to name. this does not include managers and owners who expected payouts way out of line with actual generated revenue. These companies are gone, mostly because they were not headed by old families with cronies in Washington.
Fast forward today. In the US we have many good and profitable companies being destroyed by persons who are only concerned about the immediate income, not the long term financial security. Screw the company if I can make enough in the next five years to retire. Get rich quick. For instance the car execs are complaining about the amount of money they have to pay the workers. The workers may be over paid. But here is the catch. Workers for the japanese auto makers earn in the mid 5 figures, workers in the US automaker earn in the high 5 figures. There is a difference. OTOH, execs in the japanese automakers tend to earn 7 figures while an amercan exec ternds to earn in the 8-9 figure range. It is a matter of the expectations of profits.
Then I hear the nonsense that I dont' want to work because I would have to pay too much in taxes. This is the nonsense that leads to people being on welfare. I don't want to work for $7 an hour because I would have to pay taxes on it, so I will just live on my $150 dollars of benefits. When I did consulting, I had no problem with taxes because I was paid enough. Even now I would have no problem taking a pay check for $250K and paying whatever Obama wants my to pay on it, because in the end at that level I can afford an account and still come up multiples of what I pull in know.
So, newspapers, at lest in america, will disappear only because of the laziness of the american entrepreneur. Otherwise they will transformed by people who wnat to earn a living, and not just such at the government coffers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Most big News is corrupt and unethical. Years of greed and mismanagement have turned most big city daily newspapers into money-grubbing sensationalists. So few big organizations are actually responsibly managed these days, it's a wonder anything big gets done.
Another industry gonna show up in the bailout line for some soup? Think of the jobs!
The internet will make it even easier to filter out propaganda we don't agree with. We'll all live in our little echo-chambers where every blog and every comment agrees with us. If you ask me, that is the one things print newspapers and "mainstream media" are good for--they tend to pull you out of your internet-cocoon.
And if you think I'm joking, I've read comments on Digg (shudder) were the poster claims Digg is their only source for news. Could you imagine how fucked up your worldview must be if you only get your news source from Digg (or even 100% slashdot for that matter)? The "death" of mainstream media will only make this social problem worse...
And I say this as somebody who has been known to watch MSNBC... they are pretty much on course to be the "opposite FOX". And besides, liberals are just as guilty of "boycotting" "MSM" because some journalist dared to "smear" their political candidate.
All's fair in love and war, and if you want real journalism, you better be prepared when "they" "attack" your guy.
The truth is, we as a society can't handle real journalism. It isn't that there is a vast conspiracy holding it back. The simple truth is there is no ratings in real, hard-core journalism. After all, you might piss off 50% of your market or get 1,000 angry emails from liberals (if they "smeared" a democrat) or 1,000 angry emails from libertarians (if they dare question some guy from texas's old newsletters).
We don't have real journalism in this country because we don't have the stomach for it. Simple as that.
The Detroit News is reducing home delivery to 3 times a week. Doesn't matter to me so much but older people like my folks will have to change the morning routine.
Get up!
Or you turned it off or wrote a nasty email because whoever they were investigating was "your guy" and "the mainstream media is just trying to smear him".
The people who whine the most about the quality and standards of our media are probably the least of us all to handle what they are asking for. Lord forbid the "real journalists" start going after their worldview.
After all, unless it meshes with your reality, it is either "liberal bias" or "conservative bias". I fear the internet will only amplify this growing chasm.
Sure, the local newspaper isn't all that great, but it's dirt cheap.
Though, our local paper tries to focus on local stuff, they cover a large quantity of (often-stupid) local stuff and in low depth.
Alternative newsweekly - yeah, it's small, but it picks a few local issues that it actually cover sin reasonable depth.
And sometimes, I just like reading a dead-tree object rather than a computer screen (even if it's syndicated content that I could probably find online)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Because thanks to the internet, we can now get our news from places that are *even more biased* then we could in print or tv. With the click of the back button, you can leave any page or content you disagree with, all the while justifying it by saying "oh they are just biased" then go back to your DailyKos, Digg, or wherever. After all, Digg isn't biased--the people decide what is important. DailyKos tells it like it is. Slashdot is the only place I trust for reporting on Microsoft, everybody else has been bought and paid for, right?
You should be scared of this future you tout. It is one that will be more partisan, and more bitter then the world we are in now.
Main stream media serves an important function--No matter our age, gender, political views, religion or sexuality, the main stream media is something we all use as a common reference point to our world. Without it, what will bind us together?
This is a little morbid, but if you want to see a bunch of journalists wringing their hands about this, recriminating each other and their "stupid, greedy" employers for the downfall of newspapers, etc., look here:
Angry Journalist.
Because tech has made information distribution virtually free. If your business model relies on a now-false scarcity of information distribution, it's going to fail. Journalists and journalism can survive by being heard in the new mediums, but the business model of making money by controlling the distribution is in trouble.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
I used to be a paperboy. It taught me important work ethics & skills, and kept me in shape. When I provided superior service, I made more money. When I screwed up, I lost customers, and I had to replace broken windows and screen doors. I bought my first computer, a Sinclair ZX-81 with money I made on my paper route. (That I returned it immediately, and bought a VIC-20 is besides the point...)
They did away with paperboys and afternoon delivery in the mid-80's. I still subscribe to a local paper. Some nameless faceless carrier delivers it to the soggy ditch in front of my house at 5 am in a car with a noisy muffler. It costs 5x more than it used to. I usually don't have time to read it in the morning. If I think something worthwhile may be inside, it might get carried to work with me. Most of the time it gets tossed up on the porch (where it should have been in the first place...) and left till I get home. At that point, it's stale news, and it often goes straight to the recycle pile.
When I do read it, it's all left leaning opinion masquerading as journalism. All preaching, no in-depth reporting that helps me understand and perform my civic duties. All the reporters come from the same schools of journalism, and think the same way. They're employed by the same large media companies that have the same self-interests, and push the same agendas.
On the upside... There's a Fry's ad on friday.
The WSJ and NY Times are doomed because they keep increasing the price. Where I live there is no home delivery option, and unless you want to take an hour off work to go over to the bookstore, you have to buy it out of the rack. To get the WSJ and NY Times every day, it would take 14 quarters per day to get it out of the rack. I don't know who could get that many quarters and carry them around. The racks need to take dollar coins, and the price needs to be more realistic. I used to read newspapers, but have cut back to two per week. (The Thurs NY Times -- because I give the home section to someone else, and the Sat WSJ.) If you want to survive, newspapers, reduce the number of quarters!
I would say the BBC is better because in only once case. If I wanted a decent reporting on a story, say. . . regarding US foreign policy, I would turn to a source that is not US based, I would go to the BBC. However, if I wanted unbiased reporting on the UK, I would NOT go to the BBC.
Just like I go to Fox News if I want the truth about democrats. Of course, I tune out the pro-republican crap, but I get better information regarding Democrats from Fox than other sources.
Also, I go to MSNBC if I want the truth about republicans. I have to tune out the pro-democrat rantings of Maddow and Olbermann, but I get better information about republicans from MSNBC than other sources.
Relying on one source is trouble. Besides it's the division of labor. Some outlets are great at sports others aren't. Some are business oriented, others aren't. There are many choices out there. Why is a government funded outlet even necessary?
Also, in regards to government media, it can be a very scary thing. When the government pays for something, it can dictate how it is used. Just like advertisers can influence private outlets.
I would prefer the government not have the infrastructure. State owned media can be just another way bad governments control their citizens. Anybody that says, "the bad things you speak of can't happen here," I would answer, "Yes, they can." Consider that the US has become a country where:
1. Pre-emptive war and invading countries that did not attack us is totally legitimate.
2. Government agencies can spy on their own citizens without warrant or due process.
3. Torture is an acceptable procedure.
Why would you want a government owned press when things like that can happen? If you open that doorway once, it is almost impossible to close.
I know why I stopped subscribing to the Miami Herald. They were schizophrenic in their standards and stories. For one, they started catering to all these niche interests that they lost site of the average person. And I'm decidedly pedestrian in most of my activities. For example, though I'm as tolerant as the next guy, I really don't care much about the socialite nigthclub scene or what Madonna ate on South Beach last night. I'm not being intolerant, just that I have as much interest in these topics as Kevin Smith has in how well my Xen domU partition serves iSCSI LUNs. But day after day I saw columns devoted to these subcultures but scant little on stuff that amuses me.
Their arts converage dwindled, for example. At one point they would have writeups on local openings. This changed and became writeups on Castro's health. Sure, there's a sizeable Cuban population in South Florida, but have some balance, editors.
So, cool, right? Cater to the niche is not a bad thing. But then their comics pages were so damn boring. Hey, Charles Schultz was a great guy, but Peanuts is one BORING comic strip. So was Garfield. So was Cathy. If there's a place in your newspaper where it pays to be edgy, it's the comics pages.
Then there was the victim mentality throughout the paper. Every story was about how [insert your sub-culture here] was being victimized, whether it was some ethnic group or religious group or trans-gender Key West Ernest Hemingway lookalike singers. In years I'd never seen Pitts or Hiaasen say something positive. Maybe they have, but in years I hadn't seen one. Reading the Herald was damned depressing. Come on, folks, the cool edginess of the cynical writer is a fiction handed out by graying English teachers/news reporters trying to get some from young co-eds.
And maybe I care more than I should about the passing of this particular newspaper. I'm more annoyed than sad, but maybe that's better than apathy.
It's going to be a race to the bottom in terms of quality. There are good reporters. And few, if any of them, will be able to make a dime. You can't sell subscriptions on the web, since we're all a bunch of cheap freeloaders, so that leaves ads. The ad revenue situation on the web is just pathetic. There's essentially no competition since Google was allowed to be doubleclick, and it's hard to bring in enough to run a decent web site at a profit. We're likely to (for now) see TV news organizations step into the gap as newspapers fold. But that won't least either.
And now that Google is apparently going to eschew pagerank for weighting results (and if you think they're not going to weigh some results above the weights you assign, best of luck to you), plus their attempts to cut deals with ISPs, screwing over the net neutrality movement, Google's going to get to pick the winners and losers. When newspapers have allowed business/ads to get into the news side to kill stories, it causes problems. Google's going to end up doing the same thing. Business partners, etc will get better treatment. I don't think they have the maturity (or deeply held ethics) to resist doing it.
On the up side, as this all collapses and we're left with really crappy "free" "news" content, it's likely that subscription sites will make something of a comeback, since some people, at least, will pay for new services that come along. Of course, on the downside, the connection to it may suck if companies like Google get preferential treatment from ISPs.
Enjoy it, folks. The masses have spoken, picked their information sources, and the internet of tomorrow is going to look more like an on-demand version of the crappy cable TV of today, except that even fewer companies will be making the money. Why wouldn't it? That's what the masses want. The interesting thing is that Google is kind of a parasite. They help themselves more than anyone, and unlike a successful parasite, I don't think they've figured out how not to kill off their hosts yet. At some point, if they don't start parting with a greater share of the ad revenue, they're going to have to start paying to produce content. And eventually, they're going to get in trouble as an anti-competitive monopoly, due to the ad situation.
Eventually you'll hate Google more than you hate Microsoft.
1. You can't grep/google dead trees.
2. The content is usually the same press releases or syndicate articles that are available elsewhere.
3. You can get those same stories a day earlier on the web or cable news network, and half a day earlier on broadcast TV. It's "olds" by the time the paper hits the doorstep.
4. Balance and investigation are gone. Papers sit on stories that damage their political favorite (Lewisnsky or LA Time Obama video). Either way they lean, they'll piss off some readers who can get info that are more balanced (or leaning the other way) elsewhere.
5. Internet classified or job alternatives get national/international exposure for the same or less than a local ad.
6. I have enough junk mail the dispose of without paying to receive several pounds more.
Then the freep wasn't charging enough for subscriptions. My understanding was that generally the subscription cost was only intended to cover the distribution cost, not anything to do with the writing/production. The subscriber model might work if you got a few less ads. I know people like some ads in their paper - especially Sundays - but why would I buy a subscription to 'news and info' when 50% of the paper would still be ads?
A reduced-ad version for subscribers would be (or would have been) nice.
I don't live in Detroit anymore, but grew up there (and delivered papers for a bit). I remember the Sunday editions being especially hefty at one point. :)
creation science book
I think the reason most of those free papers you see are still there is that they're going to be full of ads. Generally the only purpose of most of those free papers is to sell ads.
What the GP is proposing is to have taxpayer funded newspapers. While I'm not 100% sure I agree with them, I don't think people would ignore them or leave them in stands. If anything, when people think they've "paid" for something already via taxes, they take as much as they can get and more. How many people *don't* cash their Social Security checks?
creation science book
Also, since many newspapers are little more than repackaged AP and Reuters news, looking at the NY Times for guidance - I don't know what their value proposition is supposed to be.
I've heard at least one pundit suggest that maybe some newspapers should become like the AP - disassociate themselves from the publishing side of things. Stop publishing their newspapers themselves and instead become a subscription service that sells local coverage of their news to other newspapers. Whether it would actually work is beyond me, but it's an interesting theory.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I'm not sure if any company is doing this, but it seems like newspaper printers should change their model. The printing should become a separate operation from the reporters, and subscribers should be able to get a newspaper specifically taylored to them.
I don't know much about the technology being used today for printing a newspaper, but I'm assuming they don't do manual typesetting anymore and it's all electronic. Basically just a big printer. So why not let each subscriber specify what they want in their newspaper? For instance, maybe I want:
Top AP stories
local news as reported by Reporter X
Local movie listings
Classified ads for automobiles
Then each day, the printer could generate a custom version for me, print it, and deliver it to my home. When I don't care about the classified ads anymore, I go online and uncheck that box in my subscription page and the next day I don't get it anymore. To keep costs down, advertising could be interleaved with the stories, and I should be able to specify my interests to get more targeted advertising. They can still provide newstand versions that are of general interest.
As a software engineer I can tell you that the generation of the pages electronically is not difficult at all. They already have the distribution network and they already print a copy for each customer each night. The challenge is making sure that each customer gets their own personal copy.
Is there a market for this? I'm not sure, but I think I would enjoy getting a newspaper taylored to my interests. Personally, I prefer reading the news from a newspaper as opposed to reading it online, but I don't because a significant portion is stuff I don't care about. There are some good journalists out there, they just don't work for the local newspaper. If I could take pieces of several newspapers around the world along with some local journalism that is worth reading and combine it into one, it would be fantastic.
The first 10 amendments were added so that the 13 colonies would approve the constitution.
Ironically, the separation of church and state was required by Virginia BAPTISTS, who feared domination by New England puritans. (See "So Help Me God", by Forrest Church.) But the Deists (many of the founders were 'Deists', who acknowledged God, but not bible or church) willingly accepted it. The Puritans (Adams, et al) went along.
Law students apparently get to argue whether or not the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) are valid, since their adoption did not follow the process laid out in the Constitution. (One side says they were adopted WITH the Constitution, another side says they have been adopted by stare decisis (respect for prior decisions), and one side argues petulantly that they are not valid.)
IANAL - I just like to read.
I stopped buying newspapers when I realized they are just an extension of the entrenched political system duping the masses. They are ideologically corrupt propagandist tools of the highest bidder. I do not think they deserve a penny of my money, and in these tough economic times it became evident that if you vote with your wallet you can actually have real impact - more than ever before. So as it stands I am enjoying watching them die.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I think he is right on target with this one. Doing quality journalism is not cheap and those who believe it can be done by hobbyist journalism on blogs which do not generate much revenue are naive. The type of reporting big media has done, especially international reporting going into often dangerous countries and requiring security considerations, travel expense and so on, is not cheap. At the same time, with the web model, people are recieving this without actually contributing enough to cover the cost of this high quality journalism. The result is not good, a collapse of quality in depth international reporting and a loss of journalism that keeps americans informed and updated about the world, which means a more ignorant population, more cheap stories about britney spears and less of what americans desperately need to know about more complex international situations and what is going on in other countries. A complaint has often been expressed that Americans are ill informed and ignorant about the world, and with less quality journalism this will get even worse.
I think that there are possible solutions. Perhaps one is an alliance of newspapers, web users would pay a single fee to their local newspaper, in exchange they would get online access to that papers website and as well all other newspapers websites as well. This would assure a revenue stream for the local papers in an region and as well funding for AP/national content through this as well, while allowing consumers to still benefit from access to news content from all over the country with ease that the internet has brought.
My whole problem with Obama and his 250K tax (or 200K, or 150K) is that he seems to indicate that he wants a very socialistic system of provision and government. It could work...
However, this country is split into 50 different states, each with different governments, and different localities. Good luck coordinating anything to any degree. It will be akin to the Veterans Hospitals: covered in red tape to access red tape to a doctor who cant see you because the time-date stamp on the first red tape expired.
you also can't read websites on the crapper
That sounds scary. And... what's a newspaper? Is that like a printout of news.bbc.co.uk? Why would you do that?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Remember that the Bill of Rights was written as a "sure, we'll put it in just to be safe" thing. It wasn't part of the original negotiated plan, and was likely written by a legislator who was trying to compe up with a good inclusive list one afternoon.
The way you say "likely" shows that even you can tell that you don't know what you're talking about. The U.S. Bill of Rights was introduced by James Madison the year after the Constitution was ratified. It was a compromise with anti-federalists who had been (rightly) suspicious of the power that was being ceded to the federal government. And it wasn't cobbled together in an afternoon, it was based on George Mason's earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights which was included with the Virginia state constitution thirteen years before. Indeed, Mason had refused to endorse the Constitution because it hadn't included that sort of explicit set of guarantees of individual rights.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
"... newspapers are little more than repackaged AP ..."
From Wikipedia: "The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staffers."
I work at a daily paper. I don't work for the AP. I don't get paid for anything I create that goes on the AP. But I've had my journalism work go *on* the AP and be published all over the place. It's just normal work-a-day journalists that create AP news; some of us work in small towns you've never heard of, some of us work in the big cities.
they used to report the news that made them relevant, now the put there own spin as journalist, they did it to themselves by dumbing down the news. When I pick up the paper I want something to read not a bunch of soundbites and catchy headlines I want facts, which is the next problem. They rush the news out without details just to be first. what happened to in-depth reporting
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
We're already getting what we pay for. Our local rag is no more than an unabashed mouthpiece for one of the major political parties. Their "news" isn't really, and their editorials are excrutiatingly predictable. Classifieds are overpriced, and you can get a better selection of comics in color online. If they actually had a thoughtful local angle on the news it might be interesting, but regurgitating the same AP release that everyone else gets is not. Besides cage liners and packaging for the more authentic fish and chips shops, what is the point of newspapers anymore?
One could say that when (if) they're owned by nonprofits, newspapers will become one-sided. This doesn't strike me as much different from now.
> The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular.
Not sure I buy that. The author might be confusing news reporting, which is usually a different profit center, from news printing.
But I dunno, it's possible that advertisers have found what they think is more bang for the buck advertising online than in print. But if this is the case, you'd think that the major newspapers could eck out a living online the same way everyone else does, and without changing their business model much -- and save printing costs to boot.
This is happening to a certain extent, but I think the main hitch is that online it's even more obvious that all these individual newspapers have the exact same articles.
When the flow of information was confined to the corporations who could afford wire service and (later) access to LexusNexus, newspapers made sense. Finding out stuff was expensive, and people had to accept the summaries that newspapers (and TV news, which is also sinking rapidly) provided.
Newspapers were shot through the heart when the Internet became common -- they just haven't stopped twitching yet. There's no point in paying for the local rag, (and then having to set it out in recycling every weekend) because I can find better content online. I might even get local content from the rag's online site, if it didn't annoy me so much.
Besides, printing fewer newspapers is green. Printing none at all is very green. So there.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It's also a question of the "distributed" model vs the "centralized" model. Could one have a viable consistent news agency consisting of random people scattered across the globe? Blogger #1 is in Iraq and "reports" what he sees. Blogger two and three pick it up, comment, and spread it worldwide. Is it going to be to the same standards as everyone here claim traditional media should be held to? Also if the story is to be true then the model newspapers are using is already being validated otherwise the biosphere wouldn't be depending on them so much. And with that being said then we come full circle. If the contents worth having, then why aren't enough paying for it?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
We have a pretty good local newspaper. And I could see it setting aside its national news coverage to include a couple of pages from a major newspaper like the NYT or the WSJ or the LAT etc. Maybe even a different national guest section each day.
As for distribution. The USPS visits many homes daily, and I don't see the cost of USPS delivery inhibiting the amount of crap that arrives through my mailbox (coupons etc.)
I would have thought that a good local newspaper in combination with good editorial from a top national daily and shared costs for junk-mail distribution could do very well.
I'd pay for it (I pay for the local paper to be delivered today)
Nullius in verba
If I was a newspaper CEO, I would consider doing some serious investment in e-paper technology.
If you manage to create a portable newspaper that, coupled with wireless broadcasting, updates every minute of every hour for a subscription of a couple of dollars a month, you have nothing to worry about.
they all will move online. cut their costs to ridiculous amounts. the only issue is to sort out the fee they were charging while selling paper newspapers to customers. they can figure that out in an acceptable manner too i believe.
Read radical news here
I don't know, a lot of the "news" in the early part of this decade, in the papers, was reporting whatever the Bush administration wanted them to report, just like the TV. Embedded journalists getting sound-bites from the military, seeing what the military wanted them to see...
It was the bloggers telling us that Bush had no clothes. Something that the regular press didn't pick up on until after the 2004 election...
I don't buy into the liberal media at all. Twenty years ago, you could say that there was the liberal media, but there's plenty of conservative radio stations, tv stations and even newspapers and publishers out there. It sells.
And that's the point. Why is it that conservative media is selling, and liberal media is not? I mean, the NYT, Washpost, are all taking a beating, liberal tv news is taking a beating, but, conservative leaning media, does not. Ann Coulter can make millions of dollars and the NYT selling her books, but Nancy Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the house, can't sell crap. Even Barrack OBama's book, as well as it sold,
doesn't top conservative best sellers.
For other clever labeling see the following..
Please, as if the left wing doesn't use labelling, issue framing or name calling. You just don't like it when people frame issues in ways that you disagree with.
The list goes on and on... and you sir are full of shit.
New York Times, losing money. Wall Street Journal, making money. Yep, how is that full of shit?
This is my sig.
The list goes on and on... and you sir are full of shit.
Um, what was that point you were making about how conservatives make ad hominem attacks? The fact of the matter is that you do it as much or as more as people you do... you people are always violent, always starting social civil wars, and are just a cancer on society. Any institution that anyone has that you can't control or warp, you seek to destroy. You are the enemies of civilization and there will not be human progress until you are eliminated.
This is my sig.
That $60 gets you one dead tree, 50 cubic feet of fibrous material giving out methane in your local landfill, consumes the equivalent of 100 gallons of gasoline in production and delivers you information that's barely two days old, 99% of which you will never read. The paper is processed with toxic chemicals that will kill fish when it's dumped in the ocean.
That's a lot to achieve for only $60.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The Australian is an example of a successful newspaper with growing readership at the moment. It is successful because it puts out very good content. All of its articles are well researched and informative. The opinion pages gives voice to both sides of any political debate.
My father calls it a "Tory" newspaper because it is well-researched and factual, and sometimes has opinions that present a conservative opinion. Yet I think that many of the columnists would cry fowl to have that label applied. Regardless, a newspaper should promote debate and factual analysis, which it does well.
Contrast that against the tabloid rags that are losing popularity as the internet takes hold and you can see why the newspaper industry is "dying". Tabloids will lose popularity to flashy websites, while content rich newspapers will always appeal as their audience is different. Print media is all about the words, while online media is all about the interaction. What many newspapers are trying to do these days is run a website in newspaper form. Opinions are becoming more lopsided and thus boring in most newspapers, but the ones that are succeeding are the ones in which there is very informed and factually based opinions that present both sides of any debate.
For the majority yes. I stopped buying 2 papers many months ago. One up'd it's priced to .75 and is as thin as an onion skin 6 days a week, the other (The NY Daily News) is 80% ads and went to .75.
I used to LOVE reading newspapers.
You call TTAC's analysis obvious now with the benefit of hindsight, but I can assure you - two years ago, MANY people in the industry and on wall street were using terms like "too big to fail" and "GM will be around forever".
TTAC detailed problems with the Detroit 3's relationships with suppliers, stuffing their dealer channels to make quarterly numbers, as well as the asset sales and complex debt financing LONG before most of the newspapers realized that the ship was going down - fast.
TTAC is only one example. There are tons of other examples - you just need to find them. Once you do, newspapers are pretty much unnecessary.
I recently started a subscription to the Financial Times since I got it for free - I thought it would be interesting to get a European perspective on events occurring in the US. Still, by the time the FT lands in my driveway, it's old news.
-ted
"Newspapers do not seem to have that level of self-awareness, and are stuck in a business model that is not very profitable."
Historically, papers have been extremely profitable, even since the advent of the Web: "A typical newspaper with a 100,000 circulation makes a 15.6 percent annual pre-tax profit margin, according to Inland Daily Press Association and the International Newspaper Financial Executives. The Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other media outlets, for example, operates on an 18.3 percent pre-tax profit margin. Gannett, which owns 90 newspapers in the U.S., including USA Today, operates on a 21.4 percent pre-tax profit margin. By comparison, Walmart Stores Inc. operates on a 5.4 percent pre-tax profit margin, while Exxon Mobil Corporation operates on a 17.9 percent pre-tax profit margin."
source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/newspaperprimer.html
I've always thought this sort of high profit was kind of messed up, since reporters are paid so little. I don't mean the Sean Hannitys and Wolf Blitzers of the world, I mean regular cops/city council/schools type newspaper reporters. They earn miserable salaries by and large. Take a look at www.journalismjobs.com and you'll see $30,000/year is pretty typical. Where's the profit going? Shareholders I suppose, not into journalism. It's all business, sadly. And it has been sucking the life out of newspapers for decades, even before the Web was a factor.
That's the most insightful thing anyone has written in this thread!
The word, or idiom, DEMOCRACY IS NOT IN: The Declaration of Independence, nor The Bill Of Rights, nor (as recalled) The Articles of Confederation. Patrick Henry boycotted the CONstitutional CONvention because he "smelled a rat". And rightly so. Therein lies the enemy. RR PS. Here are the LINKS that prove the USA is still a colony of Great Britain: 1. NOTE: ARTICLE I IS THE DEBT SCHEDULE FOR $18 MILLION FRENCH LIVRES REPAYMENT BY THE USA TO THE BRITISH CROWN (Prince George III). THAT WAS NEVER HONORED BY THE USA. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/france/fr-1782.htm SEEKING RECOGNITION FOR FREE STATE STATUS via international recognition ...
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fr-1782.asp
2. FOLLOWED BY " Preliminary Articles of Peace : November 30, 1782" THE SECOND US/UK TREATY-ish (convention for the final treaty to come): "Convention" CONFRMING the USA's Free State Status to attend the final formal Treaty table / RECOGNITION by the UK CROWN.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/britain/prel1782.htm
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/prel1782.asp
3. FINAL TREATY OF RECOGNITION RATIFIED GAINING INDEPENDENCE BY CONTRACT.
The Paris Peace Treaty of September 3, 1783
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/britain/paris.htmFULLY RECOGNIZING THE USA AS independent ... contingent upon fulfilling the previous Treaty contract(s) - which never happened.
QUOTE "The Definitive Treaty of Peace"
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/paris.asp
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=computer+waste&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Now, does paper look so bad? Newp!
Sarcasm and Hypocrisy
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I can't believe no one's mentioned Craigslist. Classified ads have always been the bedrock of newspaper revenue, and Craigslist along with all the online real estate tools have destroyed it. The worst part is the right wing likes to blame it on the "liberal media," believing that in their fantasy world that "objective" - that is, right wing - journalism would be profitable.
Because you've earned +10 Insightful / Informative / Enlightening ...
My local area used to have two main newspapers, but then one got absorbed by the other, & we've had utter crap ever since.
Less news, more ads, less content, more crap.
I've come to rely on online news sources (AP, Reuters, etc) over print media for the simple fact that, by the time it IS in print, it's been online for upwards of a day, sometimes as much as a MONTH beforehand.
I'm not sure what keeps the newspapers in business given the only thing they have to offer over their online counter-parts is the added "value" of having to dig the paper out of the bushes, off the roof, or wring it out from the puddle the moron threw it into.
If I want a clean, professional, properly assembled (meaning *I* don't have to put it in its proper order) paper, I have to buy it from a vending machine.
The one I've paid to have delivered ends up arriving mangled (either by where it's landed, because of the rubber band used to hold it together, or both), wet (because they rarely use a plastic bag to cover them anymore), & unassembled.
Couple that with the fact that it's all old news I could (& have) read about online a day or two before, there's increasingly less reason to subscribe to it at all.
Which is why they keep giving it to me at half price when they call to ask me to renew & I tell them it's not worth the full price.
"It's old news regurgitated from online sources, stuffed full of ads like a Thanksgiving Turkey, & delivered in a completely unprofessional manner.
I'm not paying $30 a month for the 'convenience' of delivery when it's only two blocks to the nearest store that sells them, costs less per paper, & I end up getting a professionally prepared product.
You might want to think about that when it comes to renewing the delivery idiot's contract, because he's losing you a customer."
That's when they offer it at half price, promise to "reprimand" the delivery agent (they never do), & the cycle continues.
I think, next time it comes up, I'll cancel all-together.
There really is NO reason to get the thing anymore given the (lack of) quality & (un)professional delivery.
I'm already paying for internet where I can get my news for free.
The newspaper is worthless at that point.
I believe that newspapers would sell much better if they were printed on bright, hot pink paper with OMG PONIES!!!!!!!!!!!!1 all over it,... ;-)
By that definition, newspapers have been gone for a long time now. And TV/Radio news never actually existed. Corporate news is actually "anti-news": it leaves you less informed than before you were exposed to it (because of the extreme level of misinformation, error, and bias) and yet make you believe that you are more informed. I truly believe that the corporate media is one of the major causes of harm to our nation, by encouraging ignorance and active stupidity.
The few newsfolk who do real journalism are ignored or drowned out by the garbage, so they may as well not exist at all.
I say good riddance all of the corporate "news" outlets. The end can't come soon enough. It won't be the end of journalism, however -- it will free the environment so that perhaps actual journalism could happen.
From the lies about iraq, iran, palestine, 9/11 and just about every bloody other thing the whitehouse 70% of people know they're propaganda rags. You can't GIVE propaganda away.
The recent push for the reinstitution of the "Fairness Doctrine" [wikipedia.org] by the Dems is not really about "fairness" it's about their trying to take a stab at media outlets that don't carry their party line; you can be damn sure they would claim the "big" news networks are already "fair"
This kind of distinction assumes congress would specify either particular outlets or congress in law, which is a pretty dubious assertion. Even assuming the Democrats as horrible as the most partisan conservative thinks they are, the chances they'd get away with it are exceptionally slim.
Presumably the fairness doctrine would be constructed much as before, which is to say, congress wouldn't be specifying which outlets but rather writing the law that would specify procedures for gaining access to any station, and rules would be applied by regulatory agencies and courts.
And especially given that regulatory agencies and courts have been loaded conservative for most of recent history, in theory at least reintroducing fairness doctrine ought to provide unprecedented opportunity for conservatives to address the ostensible problem of the liberal mainstream media in America.
The fact that it doesn't provides a potential insight into how those who direct talking points for conservative media really see the landscape.
Tweet, tweet.
Perhaps this is a lesson for people who base their prices on society's willingness to pay or society's lack of fiscal intelligence in good financial times.
Bottom line is that ads are over-priced in most print media and their proposed circulation numbers don't have any relevance to how many people might actually see an ad. It's that simple. In a simple exaggeration which may not be too far off: 100,000 papers might mean 10,000 people actually read it, and less than 1000 see the page your ad is on in larger papers, and even less than 100 might actually see the ad on that page at all. If you cant get a $5000 return on a $5000 ad, what's the point? Paper owners use models from other papers to run their own, and believe advertisers will pay ridiculous amounts for tiny ads with fantasy ad view numbers... and then they believe people who dont get returns will continue advertising over time. Its simple. Paper owners are idiots.
They can however increase ad space by adding a page or even ten, and increase ad sales twenty-fold by reducing ad prices by a realistic amount of at least 50 to 80 percent. Their thinking is 10 to 20 percent of a discount is all they can do which doesn't offset the 60 to 90 percent they overcharge for with their fantasy ad viewers used in their calculations of circulation based pricing.
An honest, intelligent paper medium that bases ad costs on actual ad views will not go by the wayside. It's that simple. Possibly also offering those ads in both paper and web formats to actually benefit the advertisers that pay for the operations of the paper might help as well. But why do that when you could try to charge extra for it? Idiots.
It's a simple cleansing when idiots fall and this resets economic reality. We need more intelligent people who understand what pays for the operation and only those thinking outside the current advertising model have any chance. All of this has nothing to do with journalism or the medium in itself as a whole as many people still like to read a paper while not at a computer.
I laugh hysterically when any paper or the yellow pages people call and give my small business their ad pricing. They just can't see how overpriced they have been for years and have no clue how to make the proper adjustments.
In the future, there would be no journalists that will unravel the future Watergate scandals, for the following reasons:
1) it would be extremely dangerous. We are marching towards fascism (not only in the US, but in Europe and Asia as well), and any investigator will end up the same way Anna Politkovskaya did.
2) revenue in the press will not come from uncovering the truth, but from other types of lighter news. Why try the hard stuff when the light stuff is just (or more) profitable?
In this light, there is no room for printed newspapers any more. Only the lifestyle newspapers will remain, until housewives become computer-literate.
Maybe if the news actually stuck to REPORTING the news instead of inventing it or choosing to be policeman, judge, & jury, people would read it. I got some REAL news for all you so-called reporters. None of you are Woodward or Bernstein. You have NO RIGHT to investigate sh*t. You have one job. Report the news and LEAVE YOUR GODDAMN OPINIONS OUT OF IT!!!
And start thinking about the probable. It is inevitable that newspapers will die off. TV news will likely die too. What will follow? The medium has shifted, but the need for information hasn't gone away.
Perhaps people will have to read the same first sources (ie. govt. documents and press releases) and watch or listen to the same statements the government and business issue, that the "journalists" do now. The only thing we'll be missing is the palaver that the "journalists" wrap around the aforementioned. They long ago stopped adding any value to publicly available facts. They don't investigate anything, and 9 times out of 10 they just regurgitate the press releases that are handed to them.
Curious individuals will always be able to dig for information and blog about what they find. Interesting findings will spread rapidly, go "viral." Controversial findings will be challenged by others. If you've been watching the last few years, you'll find that bloggers have been pushing the investigative envelope far more than "journalists" have.
Everyone who craves the old model still can access the BBC, which to my mind is the only English-language source of journalism left in the world anyway.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Yes, I am well aware that computers pose a problem, but as time goes by we can make greener machines. What you leave out of your argument is that we already have computers, and unlike newspapers, they aren't going anywhere. If we get keep newspapers, we have both problems. If we get rid of them we only have to e-waste to deal with. I would also argue that waste problem posed by paper, which is truly huge, is a bigger one than caused by computers. In 15 years, at the most, a newspaper will seem as quaint as a Kodak Brownie. Even then you will still find the odd weekly here and there, just as you can, if you look hard enough, still purchase a buggy whip! http://jedediahsbuggywhip.com/ In fact as the oil runs out, they may be coming back too.
Hilarious! A conservative advocating "human progress"! You made my day! Merry Festivus!
Yes, that's right. It is conservatives that of late have taken the torch of extending freedom around the globe. We are the ones that stood up against the Soviet Union while the modern liberal cried for accommodation. We are the ones that have tried to put in democratic regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are the ones who have supported the development of economic freedom as the basis for political freedom by spreading free trade throughout the globe. Thanks to conservatives and conservative ideas, the whole of eastern europe is politically freer, china is economically freer and on its way to being politically freer, and while we were at it, George Bush saved 10 million lives in Africa from AIDs and Malaria.
Right off the wheel, you can't say liberals are in favor of advancing human progress because you now argue quite often that animals have more rights than people. A conservative would never stop a power plant from being built to save a particular endangered frog, but liberals do it all the time and in doing so raise the price of power for everyone (including the poor).
After that, what freedom does liberalism advocate? The only thing I can think of is the dubious right of allow gaying people to call their living arrangements the same name as a hetero family does. But other than that, you argue against the right of religious practice publicly and then condemn its practice in private, argue against free speech, the right to own private property and the right to keep and bear arms. What human rights are liberals actually in favor of? I'm drawing a blank.
This is my sig.
Don't worry about the lack of content. Snoop robots will give us all the dirty laundry we can ever want.
Precisely. +1 Insightful. We don't need objective papers; we need biased papers with citizens reading both, and reaching their own conclusions. (In most cases the truth is probably in the middle.)
I disagree with that. I think we need all three... we need mainstream papers that hew to a point of view, and we need some papers that strenuously try to be unbiased and objective. You're not always going to succeed, but people will give you credit and trust your word if you consistently show as a journalist that objective, clear reporting is your overriding goal.
The problem is that the US is heading for the kind of press system Britain has... nothing but right wing or left wing media, and nothing in between. What you get is a shouting match, not informed debate, and I'd argue that it hasn't served Britain very well, and it won't serve America very well either. I'm under no illusion that you can ever have perfect objectivity, but we'd all be better served if someone out there would actually try.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"Why? Simple- I spend too much time already (in my job) staring at a screen, paper's a refreshing and healthy way of getting the news when you're sick of the TFT. "
I don't think you're as alone in this view as you might believe. Computers and the Internet are wonderful and they've revolutionized information for the better. But, like books themselves, they're never going to completely replace newspapers, for a number of reasons. You've nailed one of those reasons right off... we spend a significant amount of our lives in front of a keyboard already. If you're like me, and you work in IT, no matter how much you like your job, you want a break from computer screens. I could get all my news, and even all of my literature, from a computer screen. But I'd never be able to leave my desk except to shower, eat, and sleep. And that sucks.
What I think you're going to see is a dramatic culling of the industry. Many small and mid-size cities will lose their home papers outright. For the future of papers, you might look to the model USA Today uses. I imagine some smaller states will have a single "state" newspapers, with different sections for different areas of the state.
I think you'll see two"national" papers, and that'll be it. USA Today, the Wall Street Journal... maybe the NY Times, but I doubt it. I think the NY Times isn't long for this world as a "national" paper anymore. They're one of the outlets that are bleeding red ink. IIRC, USAT was the only newspaper that actually saw its circulation increase rather than decrease, and the WSJ had only a .001 % decline in circulation. All other major cities papers have started declining, some in double digits.
The WSJ is the only newspaper I read regularly now, even if it's a day or two old. Everyone gets immediate news from the Web. That's not what you read a newspaper for anymore. You go to a newspaper for depth on the story, to sit back and get a deeper take, And that's where being able to pick up a newspaper and read it on a bench somewhere is nice. Even the kids that try to read everything on a Kindle or a netbook right now will probably change their habits eventually. Tactile feel of paper is a pleasure unto itself, and I'm confident even young kids will eventually tire of reading an electronic screen all the time.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
1) "News" papers stopped being that (papers that contained "news" or facts) years ago when they started giving me their OPINION on the front page (i.e. The Kansas City Star).
2) The next industry to go is public broadcast radio. They adopted HD entirely too long after portable music players came into being, and they are eliminating all of the people and going to a canned music channel. I get exactly what I want from satellite radio.
Look at newspapers as essentially machines for adding value to pulped trees. As a previous poster said, news operations spend 1/3 of revenue buying the bulk paper.
About 20 years ago, as an "information systems inquiry" I looked at the total electricity consumption of people watching a television show in Los Angeles compared to the number of advertising dollars required to completely buy the same minutes of broadcast time.
It turns out, putting on a TV show is a great way to cause the consumption of a huge quantity of electricity.
The dollars spent by viewers on electricity to run their TVs exceeded the entire cost of operating the TV station by an integer multiple.
(The math is simple: get the ad rate from the TV station. They will tell you the size of the audience that station pulls at that time, from the ratings sweeps. Read your TV to see the watts it burns. Read electricity bill to find your price per KWH.)
Look at getting internet news: I am smoking up 176 watts on my PC plus I am paying Comcast 8 cents an hour to run their servers.
If the news organization could get just 10% of the money I spend receiving their "signal", or .8 cent per hour for my visit to their site, then 10,000 reader hours would be $17 per hour revenue.
That is the beginning of a reasonable business income stream iff the banks do not get in the way with "per transaction charges" that kill micro cash flows.
And for those who want a newspaper on paper, kick out the pdf on a printer that looks like a news or soda vending machine. Papers are now .75 each these days.
I'd extend the proposal: I'm dying to read Science Magazine (only two public libraries receive it in all of San Mateo County). But I would have to cough up $42 for what would at best amount to 12 hours a year of browsing.
Let the papers die. I personally can't stand to be spoon fed the kind of propaganda they put out.
NY Times, LA Times, USA Today. Pure and total crap.
And all the people howling that the government can create a more perfect, less biased media? They are insane, and exactly the type of big government schmendrics who want to take your tax dollars to write stories to put a good spin on why they should be able to take more of your tax dollars. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE.
Kill your PAPER.
What does "freedom" have to do with "human progress"? Apples and oranges, Locke and Kant.
Or Hobbes and Locke, as the case may be. You think we would have evolved a different discourse on ideology by now, but I guess its fair to say that Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore aren't quite up to the same caliber as their classical forbears.
Here's one thing that's funny. You know, Obama gets tagged as liberal and he sees himself as one too, judging by his speeches... but, if you take Ronald Reagan's 1964 and 1980 RNC speech and compare it to Obama's 2008 victory speech, you will be shocked to find that they actually are not as far apart as one might imagine them to be.
This is my sig.
These things are nits though. The win with the Kindle is two-fold: Automatic delivery and a stellar screen. I'll talk about this more in a minute, first a diversion.
Those "just use an iPhone" people are nuts, I have an iPod touch (think iPhone without the AT&T contract) and while it's by far the best handheld web device out there it's actually a poorer reading device than was my old Palm for a variety of reasons (like no hard buttons for flipping pages, and it's useless if you're wearing gloves, and in its iPhone incarnation its battery life is not so hot). I use it to read books but only if nothing else is available: The type is microscopically small ... and God Help You if it's sunny.
The eInk screen on the Kindle is absolutely terrific, nothing at all like an LCD. If you haven't seen one yet you just cannot possibly form a valid opinion until you do. It's extremely sharp and works better and better the brighter the environment (and, let's face it, most environments people are in are fairly bright). You can hold it at weird angles (like paper) and it's still perfectly readable. If the Kindle isn't the right device it's pretty darn close, especially since it needs recharging so seldom (every couple of days if you leave the wireless on and run it constantly, a week or so if you run it constantly without the wireless). I never turn it off. Ever. It's reasonable to take the thing on a week long vacation and leave the charger at home; my touch can't even make it across the country, to say nothing of an iPhone with its greater power requirements and therefore shorter life.
Getting to electronic versus print editions, I subscribe to a few e-versions of print publications and by and large they are not complete editions by any stretch of the imagination. They lack the ads, which could be considered a win or not depending on your perspective, but they are usually distilled down to someone's idea of the more significant content. I've only subscribed to three different dailies on the Kindle -- San Jose Mercury News, New York Times, and Boston Globe -- but there were constants across all of them. Much Sunday edition content is missing entirely from The Globe, for instance, including all of the Auto and Real Estate sections. Worse, many stories only show up as a headline so brief that it's useless, with no peek at the content, making you dig into every link to see if it's interesting. Between limited content, poor formatting, and extremely limited photographic content the cost of the e-editions on the Kindle are sometimes questionable.
Still, it's very convenient to have it download to the device automatically every day ... and searchable as well! I usually keep a few weeks worth of papers on the device so I can look things up.
Regarding the Kindle as a reading system, I don't believe it's the ideal device -- lack of color in particular is crushing when it comes to displaying ads (which are really needed to make news media supportable long-term) and its display of photographs is reminiscent of 19th century print. It needs to do better. Even so it is a vastly better reading experience than a handheld, laptop, or desktop when you're reading more than snippets and the wireless delivery system is brilliant. Given that it was Amazon's first try it is truly remarkable as-is.
For reading books, a Kindle is a no-brainer. It exceeds paper in many ways and really only falls down if you're hooked on the tactile nature of paper or if you need to leaf through the pages qu
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com