How to kill a newspaper (food for thought)

Mike Harvey

Mike Harvey

Veteran
This ran in the last print issue of the Seattle P-I, which went to web only March 18th and laid off most of the staff, and was written by their very good business reporter and columnist.

I see a lot of this stuff applying to TV news and other broadcast mediums... and see TV news making a lot of the same mistakes.

How to Kill an American Newspaper
 
Thing is, newspapers serve a useful societal function which is not going to be as well-served by the media coming in to replace them. I don't have a romantic attachment to newsprint, but the concentration of expertise and potential for in-depth and investigative reporting offered by newspaper units isn't going to be replaced by a business model that basically just looks for the cheapest fastest available content to cram into the pipe without regard for its quality (the innumerable spelling and grammatical errors plus malapropisms proliferating in online publications being evidence, of this; if you can't be bothered to spell- and grammar-check, why should anyone expect that you bother to do something more difficult, like fact check?).

'Adapt or die' is a fine model for capitalist competition but can lead to very undesirable consequences when the most competitive business model also happens to uniformly lower the quality and utility of a potentially important product, with implications covering the political, economic and social life of the nation.
 
Word... they says we be dumming down, but I don't thinks not.

*content edited to not close down the thread*

The time's coming when people will only take in the news they want to hear, with the spin that supports their view... real truth will be a coincidence rather then a mission.
 
Sad Max said:
Thing is, newspapers serve a useful societal function which is not going to be as well-served by the media coming in to replace them. I don't have a romantic attachment to newsprint, but the concentration of expertise and potential for in-depth and investigative reporting offered by newspaper units isn't going to be replaced by a business model that basically just looks for the cheapest fastest available content to cram into the pipe without regard for its quality (the innumerable spelling and grammatical errors plus malapropisms proliferating in online publications being evidence, of this; if you can't be bothered to spell- and grammar-check, why should anyone expect that you bother to do something more difficult, like fact check?).

'Adapt or die' is a fine model for capitalist competition but can lead to very undesirable consequences when the most competitive business model also happens to uniformly lower the quality and utility of a potentially important product, with implications covering the political, economic and social life of the nation.
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The problem with newspapers in this internet, fast turnover, 24 hour newscycle is that by the time you get your newspaper, it's not news anymore. I think this, more than anything, is the reason for the newspapers demise. Nobody wants to pay for old news. When you can't sell a product that costs only 50 cents, something is seriously wrong with your industry.
 
Sad Max said:
the concentration of expertise and potential for in-depth and investigative reporting offered by newspaper units isn't going to be replaced by a business model that basically just looks for the cheapest fastest available content to cram into the pipe without regard for its quality
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But what newspaper out there anymore actually lives up to that potential? I think most of them are already running on that Internet business model, in print or not...
 
Batutta said:
The problem with newspapers in this internet, fast turnover, 24 hour newscycle is that by the time you get your newspaper, it's not news anymore. I think this, more than anything, is the reason for the newspapers demise. Nobody wants to pay for old news. When you can't sell a product that costs only 50 cents, something is seriously wrong with your industry.
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I think this is more symptomatic of another problem: the expectation of a 24 hour news cycle and the assumption that if it isn't breaking-brand-new-just-in, then it isn't worth hearing about.

Imagine if that attitude had been prevalent during, say, the Watergate scandal. On Day Two or Day Three Woodward and Bernstein would have been told We already covered the story; break-in at an office. Now it's old news, drop it and move on to something else.
Captain Pierce said:
But what newspaper out there anymore actually lives up to that potential? I think most of them are already running on that Internet business model, in print or not...
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Even today major papers still do more in-depth analyses than network, cable or internet-portal news vendors. Part of the problem is that their audiences have been conditioned to expect the top-line-bleeding-here-and-gone news bite, rather than in-depth reportage that takes more than the attention span of a brain-damaged horsefly, to read through.
 
Batutta said:
The problem with newspapers in this internet, fast turnover, 24 hour newscycle is that by the time you get your newspaper, it's not news anymore.
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True, but without newspapers, what would I read on the train or bus?

compare this to a laptop (for reading news): paper its cheap, doesn' require power, can be folded and disposed when finnished.

Edit:

//Use it to swat flies

//Use it as scrap paper to jot my thoughts, record a strangers number

//make paper hats

etc...

:D

Anhar
 
i like newspapers for the local news stories they cover. often times they will give information on local events that you can't find elsewhere. the national stuff i've likely already read about on the internet the night before.
 
Well being from Seattle, the P-I hasn't seemed legitimate for years. I'd agree with him that the political agenda that was pushed by the P-I was very one sided. That left in doubt how anything else from the paper could be unbiased- actually something that papers have never been. See Hearst for the details......

Of course the Seattle Times here isn't much better. To me the local print media thinks it's a lot bigger and more powerful then it is. I'm glad the one-side monopoly is crumbling.
 
Now that I really step back and take a look, I do seem to get most of my news online. I feel differently about books though. I hate, with a passion, the idea of a Kindle or reading a novel on my iPhone. Gotta have the hard copy. I would imagine that for many people out there, the same thing applies with having an actual newspaper in their hand with their morning coffee. But as the current generation of young rascals who are brought up being connected to the internet more than we are, they will probably not keep papers and sadly books alive past the middle of this century.
 
Nektonic said:
I hate, with a passion, the idea of a Kindle or reading a novel on my iPhone.
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I don't have a kindle, but I've seen it and the sony ereader and I think they are cool. The e-ink tech looks exactly like real paper so there is no eye strain. It's not like looking at a computer screen. I'd buy a kindle right now if I had the money to throw around.
 
Batutta said:
Train? Bus? What are those? I'm in Los Angeles and have no idea what you are talking about.
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They are public-access vehicles for the mass movement of commuters. People sit in them and read newspapers, they same way we do in L.A. while driving our cars.
 
MattinSTL said:
The time's coming when people will only take in the news they want to hear, with the spin that supports their view... real truth will be a coincidence rather then a mission.
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Welcome to the NY Times.

BWAHAHA!!


I know that was tounge in cheek Matt, you cheeky bastage, I just couldn't resist.



I couln't care less about newspapers. Waste of good trees. Long gone is the time of reporting news, the last decade or so the screeching has gelled to a point where even the loyal can't stand it. The self importance and haughty disdain with which "reporters" give us, not the news, but what they think of it, has become nauseating in the extreme.

And of course, someone just had to throw out the FNN. Cant you be satisfied with your monopoly on everything else? Give it a rest already. Don't watch what you don't like. The rest of us have had to put up with exactly the way you feel since Cronkite was starting out, so enough for cryin out loud.



That was a very good article. Incitefull, spot on, and intelligent. I can only hope TV gets its act together or suffers the same.
 
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ddp said:
Well being from Seattle, the P-I hasn't seemed legitimate for years. I'd agree with him that the political agenda that was pushed by the P-I was very one sided. That left in doubt how anything else from the paper could be unbiased- actually something that papers have never been. See Hearst for the details......

Of course the Seattle Times here isn't much better. To me the local print media thinks it's a lot bigger and more powerful then it is. I'm glad the one-side monopoly is crumbling.
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And that is the problem. Time was when the newspapers REPORTED the news, and didn't try to SHAPE it. Editorials were kept to the editorial page. Now, every "story" doesn't bother with the 5 W's, but they attempt to TELL you what you SHOULD be thinking about the issues, rather than reporting on the facts and letting you form your own opinion.

Most people see through this and it is ONE of the reasons the traditional newspaper medium is dying.
 
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