Comments on: Some promising news about the news

By: Darren Toth

Darren Toth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:33:11 +0000

In my opinion, part of the problem starts with the actual paper itself. The cost to produce wood pulp paper, and the environmental damage in it’s production or recycling or landfill storage, all serve to continue the newspaper’s path to obscurity.
Journalists are facing today the crisis that filing clerks went through in the 80′s-they either lost their jobs or retooled their knowledge and became data-entry clerks. Progress usually takes a toll on somebody, but that should be no reason to slow it down.
Just think of how ticked off all those Catholic Scribes who painstakingly copied the bible felt when Gutenberg whipped out his printing press…it is the same situation now.
If newspapers want to survive, they are going to have to do more than fire writers-they are going to have to cut costs by using cheaper and more bio-degradable paper, and work with their advertisers to figure out promotions or something more tangible than just opinions.
I am an aspiring writer myself, and I understand the need for people to pull a living from writing, but the print industry needs a dramatic overhaul if it is to compete with the much more efficient mediums out there. I mean, look at what is happening to the entertainment industry–DVD and CD sales are crippled by the pirating technology out there today.
The simple fact is, that if you want consumers to pay for something, you have to offer more than what they can take for free. For example, I collect DVDs, and aside from it being “the right thing to do”, what incentives do I have to actually buy the DVD when I can just get the movie online? Well, some intelligent distribution companies offer little toys or stickers, or games only playable off the disc itself. They include commentaries and extras, or little booklets about the show or film. I feel cheated when I buy something and all I get is a plastic disc and an ad for some other film.
Perhaps newspapers could start putting little CD roms in their Sunday editions, or at least redesign the damn thing so it isn’t so hard to read on a crowded subway.
Newspapers are a dying medium, but information has never been at a higher demand. We writers just have to get a bit more creative about how we make money selling our voice in an increasingly louder world.

By: AP

AP — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:29:50 +0000

As someone who’s livelihood is directly tied to the health and culture of media, the last two years have been fascinating and scary. On the media side, there’s been such an interesting split in that some reporters and editors have embraced new media, while some are disgusted that young people today don’t know what a “newspaper” is. On the ancillary side, marketers have reacted similarly. Some have embraced, but many who’s economic models are tied to old world means of communicating have struggled. But the reality is what it is, which is why MSN.com’s visitors in one day is more than the top 12 newspaper subscription totals combined.

By: Some promising news about the news

Some promising news about the news — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:33:03 +0000

[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAs the most exciting presidential campaign of my lifetime comes to an end, the newspaper industry is in its worst slump ever. My FORTUNE colleague Richard Siklos has a great column about the industry’s woes at fortune.com, including this recap of recent headlines: Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper company, plans to lay off 10%, or 3,000, of its newspaper staffers; the century-year-old Christian Science Monitor will cease publishing in print; the Newark Star-Ledger will cut its newsroom [...]

By: M

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:17:18 +0000

I ran across a stat earlier today stating that the Internet had passed print media as the political news source of choice. The #1 position was held by television though, sadly.