This Is How a Newspaper Dies (Denver Post)

Politico ^ | May 13, 2018 | Jack Schafer

[Calvin Locke]

School of “journalism” graduates is the problem.

Hey! They only want to change the world, not do actual reporting. Besides being work, reality interferes with how fast the world changes, and in what direction.

[Seruzawa]

If the papers disappear what will I line my birdcage with? How will I keep oil drips off the garage floor?

[ConservativeMind]

Ping to you, sir.

[\/\/ayne]

Now is the time for conservative papers to start up and run. In previous times liberal newspapers were so powerful they could hire thugs, threaten advertisers and control the major printers to stop real newspapers from starting up. I remember reading about a case like that in the '90s. But they can't do that now - too many options to control.

And in today's automated world a newspaper is not such a huge operation. I'd like to see it tried somewhere. Hire only non-liberals except for a few op-eds because they just can't be trusted.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“This isn’t how a newspaper dies, it is how we don’t care for liberal propaganda and liberalism ideas. Heck, not even liberals want to read that tripe.”

That was my take, too. As usual, the 800# Gorilla in the room (Non-Stop Socialism) is ignored...

I DID get a kick out of how this guy is wringing every last dime out of this paper and others, though. Justice served via Capitalism!

[SaxxonWoods]

I have a conservative friend who takes this paper. He hates it and complains about everything in it, but he can’t stop his habit of reading it in the morning.

It’s nuts, but he is an addictive personality in other ways also.

[RayChuang88]

Just the fact we’re talking about this on the Free Republic web site explains why newspapers are dying: they can’t keep up with the news cycle. And has gotten worse with the rise of social media on cellphones.

[HotHunt]

A few might survive in print but most will survive, if at all, in digital format.

They don't have real reporters working for them any longer any longer. Just news aggregators from some national news service.

I haven't touched a newspaper in over a dozen years. Filthy newsprint ink anyway.

I stopped reading my local paper in Arizona before I retired to Florida when I realized I was reading stories that I had read on the internet days before. What's "news" about that?

Since moving to Florida, I don't keep up with local news, just national news and politics.

I get most of that from FR and the Drudge Report links.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...I don’t keep up with local news, just national news and politics.”

I’m the opposite! I WANT local news more than National News - unless there’s a Natural Disaster that’s going to impact me in the long run, or course!

I’m as tired of the daily Trump-Bashing as I was of the daily Butt-Kissing for 0bama.

The National news outlets are worthless, agenda-driven shysters, IMHO.

[Steve_Seattle]

When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, Seattle had two dailies. One, The Seattle Post-Intelligence, went digital-only more than a decade ago. The other, The Seattle Times, has cut staff, frozen wages, cut pensions, gotten thinner, and moved steadily left.

The editorial content is often embarrassing, and news coverage is often unbelievably biased. (When that guy tried to assassinate a dozen Republican lawmakers last summer, the story didn't even make it above the fold.)

Meanwhile, a couple of weeklies have emerged with small staffs. Even though they are distributed free, they survive through ads for restaurants, entertainment, "personal services," and other personal ads.

I wonder if someday government will take over the job of publishing vital statistics and other governmental information, and newspapers will all be on-line, focusing on major stories only, sports, and entertainment.

[Parmy]

Ping.

[5by5]

The Post never owned the News. Also, the News shut down in 2009, when Scripps owner of the News) failed to find a buyer for its half of the partnership that jointly ran the business operations of the two papers. They remained bitter rivals to the end.

The News, founded in 1859, was Colorado's oldest, and somewhat conservative paper.

The Post celebrated their victory by veering to the left, abandoning any hope of capturing the readers of the defunct News. That sealed their fate. I'm surprised they lasted this long and will be glad to see them go out of business.

Perhaps the News will rise again.

[Grampa Dave]

“”By raising prices and lowering quality, a stagnant business can rely on its most loyal customers to continue to buy the product, allowing it to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze its customers as they croak. This slow liquidation of an asset’s value, destroying even its reputation in the process, kills the product. Wherever newspapers can be found reducing page size, cutting news pages, narrowing coverage area, reducing staff, shrinking circulation area, postponing the purchase of new equipment and raising subscription prices, they are harvesting market position.”

Sounds like what Comcast,AT&T other cable providers and satellite providers of Television have been doing for years.

Lowering the quality, pushing liberal stuff and raising their monthly bills.

People with a half of a functioning brain have been cutting their tv cable or satellite service at an increasing rate for over a year.

Newspapers, cable and/or satellite tv service are worthless in today’s world and an expensive bad habit feeding the Deep State which controls our media.

[Steve_Seattle]

The anti-conservative bias of the dailies hasn’t helped them retain subscribers, but the main reason for their demise is the loss of advertising revenue because of competition from the Internet. Plus, many of them had bloated staffs, and the fact that they can still put out a (slimmed-down) product with a much smaller work force shows just how bloated they were.

[Grampa Dave]

"I DID get a kick out of how this guy is wringing every last dime out of this paper and others, though.

Sweet Justice served via Capitalism!

[Bonemaker]

“The paper is a joke, and the “reporters” deserve what they have and will get.”

I’m not aware of any papers that aren’t liberal fishwraps and deserve death. I used to read 4 papers a day but gave that up a long time ago. They suck. I’ll buy one rarely just to have fire starter available for my grill.

[dandiegirl]

That’s my problem. I cancelled it once and then got it back because of my 30 year habit, but this is the last straw for me. It’s nothing but reprints of articles from the NYT and W Post and anti Trump letters. I like the local news section and the busniss section, but I’m giving up my habit for good.

[LostInBayport]

Just the fact we’re talking about this on the Free Republic web site explains why newspapers are dying: they can’t keep up with the news cycle.

I picked up a friend's mail the other day. The newspaper was in the box. It was basically a pamphlet and cost multiples of the price it was when I delivered it as a kid.

I perused it as I walked the driveway. The "news" wasn't new (I had read it all online the day before and in some cases days before), and had no depth. Most of the "stories" reeked of the liberal AP or were essentially made up of press releases or official statements.

In a short time I believe they will be gone in print form.

[catnipman]

not to mention that the dying Denver Post is little more than yet another outlet for the leftist fake stream media anti-Trump propaganda, filled with lying garbage from AP, McClatchy, WaPoo, and NYslimes, containing close to zero local news, and chock-a-block with big colorful ads for pot stores ...

[Wally_Kalbacken]

My 90 year old father will get out in traffic and drive to get a USA Today, every day. He gets the Milwaukee Journal in a subscription deal that gives him full digital access, and has iPad and laptops galore, yet never reads a paper that is not in the physical form of...paper. My in-laws, of the same age, read their paper over and over again until the folds are creases about to wear through.

That is what’s left of the newspaper business - the dying audience that spent so long in their audience that they cannot leave. What is that, those presently 78+?