A Newspaper Investigates Its Future (Deck Chair Re-arrangement Alert/Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The New York Times ^ | October 12, 2006 | Katherine Q. Seelye

[Uncle Vlad]

The water runs fastest when it gets closest to the drain...

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

I subscribe for local news. When that is covered in full by a non-biased medium, I'll subscribe to that.

[WashingtonSource]

They named their effort the Manhattan Project? So, they're going to produce a bomb. Hmmmmmm.

[Freedom is eternally right]

I do agree that your suggestions would work for most newspapers. It isn't working for small town papers. There are only so many subscribers available, as well as a smaller base of potential advertisers. There are a few businesses from the "big city" close to us that advertise in our local paper, but not many. There is really no reason for them to advertise in our paper, because most people here subscribe to both the local paper and the bigger "city" paper. I'm talking small town, population of 2300.

[Morgan in Denver]

Part of the problem we have in Denver is both newspapers buy stories from the NY Times syndicate to include in the paper. Then the local reporters will key off those for their coverage or comments.

I agree with you on local news but the paper cannot ignore national or international news either.

One successful model seems to be the Wall Street Journal.  They sell the paper, sell the on-line paper for a discounted price and have a free site for the general public.  

If I owned a newspaper I would do something similar.  I'd have expanded and more coverage than the paper provides, which I'd give for free to anyone who subscribes to the paper.  That would be in addition to the limited free website for people who don't subscribe.   I'd also sell the website to those people who don't want the paper on their doorstep but want the whole thing. 

Of course, that also means changing the biases they have now too. 

[GOPJ]

After the endless bias of liberal finger wagging, there's the practical and offensive -- "experts" predicting the future. Fortune telling. And it belongs in a carnival between the dog faced boy and the "knock over 6 milk jugs" game. Prediction past a months time should be tossed.

"Economic" predictions are among worst because they include bias. A twofer.

When a democrat is President, the "economists" newspapers find predict rosy economic outcomes (housing, interest rates, employment, etc.), when a Republican is President it's the opposite.

Unless a newspaper owns a "working crystal ball", just the NEWS will do fine.

Newspapers flinch at unvarnished news... It's not dramatic enough, doesn't engage or showcase their writing skills... And that's another problem.

Readers aren't an audience at a concert. Reporters are not "rock stars". Reporters should be invisible behind the information - not showcased.

Woodward and Bernstein started the "reporter as rock-star mentality" that is bringing down newspapers, but it doesn't have to continue.

Readers buy information that is useful. That's not glamorous. Readers often want the "list" -- not beautiful writing or carefully crafted phrases, but solid, reliable, well organized, information -- NEWS.

[Grampa Dave]

We can expect more wet dreams from the LA Slimes Marxist Homosexual Lunatics posing as news.

Their arrogance and lunancy is bringing them down.

[abb]

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11891
Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 10/12/2006 11:04:14 AM
Title: Walter's 15 tips
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From JOHN WALTER: Re: LAT investigative team to find ways to re-energize readers.

WAYS TO REENERGIZE READERS
1. Go out in street, see news, write it up.

2. Fire any reporter or editor who refuses to learn how to use the Web to its greatest advantage, or to experiment with what works on Web vs. what works in print.

3. Increase the distinctions between Web and print -- but make both, in their own fashion, complete.

4. Celebrate the idea that news is many things -- investigative, features, trends, results. Key daily news meeting question: "Does the public NEED us today?"

5. Kill all daily news meetings, and send the editors out in street (see No. 1 above.)

6. Yank all columnists who write with the word "I" or cutesy variation thereof; run no column that contains not an ounce of new reporting; hold public execution in town square of any columnist who writes "searching
for a column topic" column.

7. Ban "clever, humorous" rewriting that tries too hard (see: Newsmakers columns); preferably, allow no one over 30 to try humor. On the other hand, run no dull stories.

8. Drop all non-informational, space-eating graphics, and every house ad.

9. Run obituaries and weddings for free, and increase the type size in classified.

10. Print the damn paper in register.

11. Announce that for home delivery customers, the paper will once again be found inside their screen door, not in the puddle in the driveway. Every home, every day.

12. Make the paper actually, really available at newsstands and convenience stores, at a reasonable price. Don't reduce the press run on ABC "elimination" days.

13. Spend not one penny more on consultants.

14. New newsroom rule: Answer phone calls. Respond to e-mails. On weekends and vacations, talk to real people.

15. Forget about reenergizing readers; it's the paper that needs fixing.

[Grampa Dave]

16. Quit running DNC and Clintoon tactics and dirty tricks as news. The public isn't buying that bs any more, and few advertisers are paying for it.

[Milhous]

It doesn't matter what the Times or any other print newspaper does -- the future of news is on the internet.

Newsprint's true problem.


The name refers, of course, to the American effort to develop an atomic bomb during World War II, an-exaggerated-for-effect overstatement of the problems facing ink-on-paper newspapers: declining circulation, stagnant ad revenues and rising costs.

Fitting choice given how the ugly truth of newsprint's uncomfortable problem lies with physics. It takes orders of magnitude more energy to propagate ink and paper molecules through a Newtonian world than it takes to propagate electrons through a Einsteinian world.


While visits to newspaper Web sites are increasing, they account for a small part of revenue and do not draw enough advertising to support newsroom operations.

Newsprint's true problem - trying to ignore newsprint's uncomfortable problem by tippy-toeing around it only makes it grow worse.


national and international ambitions

TRB needs to forget about its outside ambitions and stick to its own backyard if it truly wants a shot at scooping the Inet.


a sense among some that online publishing will someday push aside many print newspapers.

Unless newsprint becomes a government funded boondoggle you can probably bank on the laws of physics driving the dwindling fortunes of newsprint.


using citizens to “report” on local matters

TRB ought to drop its arrogant innuendo that it trusts citizen journalists only as far as "report[ing]" on local matters.


As for the notion that reporters could come up with solutions to what ails the business, Mr. Niles said, “None of these legions of other people have come up with the answers, so why shouldn’t reporters take a shot?”

As long as Mr Niles and his cohorts stubbornly choose to ignore our answers we shall continue newsprint's circulation declination therapy. :)

[Milhous]

Readers aren't an audience at a concert. Reporters are not "rock stars". Reporters should be invisible behind the information - not showcased.

Woodward and Bernstein started the "reporter as rock-star mentality" that is bringing down newspapers,

Excellent observations on the narcissistic nature of news.

[Milhous]

13. Spend not one penny more on consultants.

It typically takes a consultant to offer up corporate entertainment in the form of perfumists, futurists-in-residence and truthsayers-to-power.

[GOPJ]

Excellent observations on the narcissistic nature of news.

Thanks :)

[abb]

another pertinent essay...

http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2006/10/12/ESSAY-Matera%20paper%200541.doc.aspx
ESSAY- Cancel: Divorcing the daily paper

[Eddie01]

The Los Angeles Times is looking to chart its future by using its own reporters and editors, who rank among the best investigators in the business.

This is the lie.

Their are NO reporters or journalists at the Los Angeles Times or any other of the MSM outlets.

They are all ad copy writers and spokespersons for the DNC; nothing more than the DNC's marketing arm/ad agency.

I said it before I will say it again. Their is no bias in the MSM because the MSM is not part of what anyone would consider journalism.

[abb]

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/10/why_not_the_los_angeles_p.php
Why not the Los Angeles Project?