Newspapers: Still important?

[samclem]

According to tomorrow's WSJ Denver's Rocky Mountain News will publish its last edition on Friday.

Newspapers are in big trouble. The San Francisco Chronicle is on the ropes, and the companies which publish the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Philadelphia Enquirer have declared bankruptcy, along with the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

I know that newspapers are not doing well in their competition for eyeballs, but I hope they don't become extinct. They need to find a business model that allows them to make money selling the valuable information they contain.

I think newspapers do a better job than any other medium in unearthing local corruption and bringing essential local issues to light. TV is to focused on the glitzy stuff--viewers won't sit still for a 2 minute story about the impact of a zoning change. The internet (blogs, Twitter, etc) produces very little new information, and there's no one to sift the junk and stand behind a story.

I don't even care for my local paper very much, but I subscribe to it as a means of supporting a gaggle of paid snoops. I want people looking under the rug and shouting long and loud about local outrages they find.

Even the New York Times is in trouble. There have been many days when I'd dance with joy on the grave of the Grey Lady, but in my heart I know we'd all be a little poorer if our own Pravda went under. But, just a little . . .

 

[ziggy29]

They start putting most or all of their content online for free, and they wonder why subscriptions are down so far. Hmm, I wonder...

 

[bbbamI]

The main reason I get the Dallas Sunday Snooze is because of the coupons. I skim the headlines and read the comics of course.....

My subscription cost last year was $120. I saved $400 using the coupons.

 

[ziggy29]

The main reason I get the Dallas Sunday Snooze is because of the coupons. I skim the headlines and read the comics of course.....

If we could get a Sunday-only subscription via home delivery at a reasonable rate (say $2 a week or so), I'd do it for the coupons, too.

We're a little too far off the beaten path for any of the major local papers to offer home delivery, and they want you to take Friday and Saturday too, when all we'd want is Sunday for the coupons.

 

[HFWR]

Who has time to read the paper?

HFWR, working slob...

 

[IBWino]

Who has time to read the paper?

HFWR, working slob...

Not sure I could get my day started without reading the paper each morning. I take an hour each day to read the morning paper before going to work, while also enjoying a half pot of coffee.

 

[HFWR]

I stare lustfully at Becky Quick while having my coffee...

 

[Bestwifeever]

I don't think the papers can last if people buy them only on Sundays--they would have to shut down.

I did read the papers that are declaring bankruptcy are still viable financially as an enterprise, they just have that darned old debt problem.

 

[ziggy29]

I don't think the papers can last if people buy them only on Sundays--they would have to shut down.

Maybe they ought to stagger the coupon inserts throughout the week instead of putting all of them in on Sunday. If that's a major reason why people only want the Sunday paper, that could stimulate demand for a 7-day subscription.

 

[HFWR]

The coupons are a non-starter for me. I tend to buy the [-]cheapest[/-] least processed food I can find. Not many coupons for a bag of no-name pinto beans or brown rice...

 

[RonBoyd]

According to tomorrow's WSJ Denver's Rocky Mountain News will publish its last edition on Friday.

I told DW that the Rocky, two months shy of its 150th birthday, was publishing its final edition tomorrow (see Article). She said that is "so sad."

I asked when the last time she (we) bought a newspaper and she figured it was over ten years ago (closer to fifteen, I believe). So I said, "See it is all your fault."

Print version Newspapers have been irrelevant for quite some time. (I read the online versions of around fifteen newspapers every morning -- from Al Jazeera to the Honolulu's Star Bulletin and Advertiser.) The same can be said for those monstrous telephone Yellow Pages... I have not used one of them in a very long time either.

Neuharth figured it out 26 years ago when he started USAToday. Shipping electrons is cheaper and more efficient than shipping dead trees. Too bad in all that time he (or anyone else, apparently) couldn't figure how to take advantage of his revelation. Now they are being forced too.

It will, in any event, be interesting to see what all that talent (the laid off newspaper people) can do with the modern [-]methods of spreading knowledge[/-] tools available to them.

I am having a tough time dredging up any sympathy. Buggy Whips keep getting in the way.

 

[kumquat]

Who has time to read the paper?

HFWR, working slob...

You could read them at w**k

 

[HFWR]

You could read them at w**k

Nah, too busy [-]surfing the web[/-] working!!

 

[travelover]

...<SNIP>.....

I think newspapers do a better job than any other medium in unearthing local corruption and bringing essential local issues to light. TV is to focused on the glitzy stuff--viewers won't sit still for a 2 minute story about the impact of a zoning change. The internet (blogs, Twitter, etc) produces very little new information, and there's no one to sift the junk and stand behind a story.

....<SNIP> . .

I agree. Here in Metro Detroit, the Free Press is going to 3 days a week home delivery with fresh on line content on the other 4 days. The Free Press broke open the corruption and perjury scandal that sent the Detroit mayor to prison. Without their oversight this crook would still be in office.

 

[RonBoyd]

I agree. Here in Metro Detroit, the Free Press is going to 3 days a week home delivery with fresh on line content on the other 4 days. The Free Press broke open the corruption and perjury scandal that sent the Detroit mayor to prison. Without their oversight this crook would still be in office.

Just so everyone understands, I agree whole-heartedly with what you are saying. It's that I believe dead trees are no longer the most efficient way to influence public behavior in the manner you describe.

 

[Walt34]

I one of those who still likes to read the local morning newspaper and subscribes to it.

The reality is that local events have a far greater impact on daily life than events in some far-away place. If there is repaving going on out on I-81 I want to know about that.

I don't really care about Octomom.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

I agree. Here in Metro Detroit, the Free Press is going to 3 days a week home delivery with fresh on line content on the other 4 days. The Free Press broke open the corruption and perjury scandal that sent the Detroit mayor to prison. Without their oversight this crook would still be in office.

Memories!! Used to stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way to the GM Tech Center. Every morning-same thing. Two chocolate covered cake donuts and keep the coffee coming. Read the Free Press every morning for all my years living in Warren. Now it looks like we might lose both the Free Press and GM. Now that I'm in Tampa, seems like I still gotta have the Tribune in the morning. Got to see the sports page first. Coupons pay for my subscription. I don't save anything less that $.50. Sometimes we go coupon shopping. We take all our coupons, review for necessity,discard the rest and go to the store and only buy those items. May not need it today but maybe next month. Works for us.

 

[Bestwifeever]

You can read the Chicago Tribune stories on the net before you even get the paper--Saturday afternoon for stories in Sunday's paper, for example. But I would still subscribe to the print edition no matter what.

No one else will dig into bad government, for example, like newspapers, imho, but once they started giving content away they shot themselves in the foot. The music industry almost went down that path but was able to reverse it to a great extent--people don't mind spending $ on iTunes, Napster (does Napster still exist?), etc. now. Someone likened the newspapers' posting content on their internet sites to a Hollywood studio spending bazillions on a Brad Pitt movie and then three days before its release in theaters offering it for free online.

 

[dex]

I think newspapers do a better job than any other medium in unearthing local corruption and bringing essential local issues to light. TV is to focused on the glitzy stuff--viewers won't sit still for a 2 minute story about the impact of a zoning change. The internet (blogs, Twitter, etc) produces very little new information, and there's no one to sift the junk and stand behind a story.

I agree with you about the local newspapers (and the "new media") but, that doesn't say much. The newspapers can only be as good as the reporters and editors. Both are a product of our educational system - no history, economics, analysis, logic etc. Most newspaper writers are generalists - meaning they studied journalism in school and then go out and cover every story subject. What other industry, sill in existence is primarily run by generalist?

Also, since Watergate, newspapers have become cynics instead of critics of what is happening. Did the politics of the newspapers have something to do with their losing of there readership? It might have.

Add to all of this the internet, TV and the dumbing down of the American public and newspapers become an anachronism.

 

[RonBoyd]

February 27, 2009 12:01 AM

The End

Well, folks, this is the last cartoon I'll draw for the Rocky Mountain News. I've had a wonderful run for the last 31 years, producing more than 8,000 drawings. It's the career I dreamed of having when I was a kid, and it's been more rewarding than I ever could have imagined. I've had the great good fortune over the years of toiling for editors who appreciated my skills and who believed in the editorial freedom a cartoonist needs to do the best work, even when they disagreed with my opinion. I've worked with more talented journalists than I can possibly name. I'm especially grateful to the many loyal readers of the Rocky for having given my long career meaning. Thank you for your comments, kind and critical, over the years. It is you who have kept the discussion, so vital for a vibrant democracy to flourish, alive all these years. I will miss hearing from you.

Although my work here is finished, I will continue to cartoon for my syndicate. I'll be posting those cartoons on my new website at edsteinink.com (it will be up shortly). If you wish to contact me--and I hope you will--my email address is edstein2@gmail.com.

Ed Stein

 

[Sue J]

I grew up in a household that had 2 daily newspapers delivered, the Cleveland Press and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But when I left home I found I didn't want a daily newspaper. Even before the internet I stopped subscribing.

I'm one of those people who needs to read the entire paper before I throw it out. By the time I read the full thing it's old news. As another poster said, the coupons seem like a great idea until I realized that I was carrying around great coupons for things I was not going to buy, name brand items, convenience foods, new items that they want you to try.

My current local paper, the Akron Beacon Journal, is available online at Ohio.com - Homepage . Every morning I check the front page and the local news and that's it, nice and simple. No trees ground into pulp, no ink, no big production costs, no delivery trucks (and drivers) nobody walking the block for a daily delivery. I know the ABJ has had to make cutbacks, laid off writers, drivers, etc. They can go ahead and blame me and people like me.

If I'm in a waiting room with a paper available I'll take a look. It's the same articles that I read online only now they are split up onto two pages to make room for all the ads I don't want to read.

Re-reading my comments..... I'm starting to sound like the "old curmudgeon" posters. I'm really not like that. I'm modern and high tech and I'm into simpifying. I just find a daily newspaper to be unnecessary in my life.

 

[TromboneAl]

It's amazing how primitive newspapers are. Mashing up pieces of wood from trees, soaking them in huge vats of liquid, drying them out, squeezing them together in megaton machines, cutting up the paper, shipping it around the world, banging ink onto it, and shipping it around -- every day!

I toured a paper mill once. The paper was spinning onto a semi-truck-sized roll at tremendous speed. As happens a few times per day, there was a tear, and in seconds the paper starts jumbling up everywhere. More paper flew around in that one second than I will use in my lifetime.

Seems crazy that we still do this when instead words/images/videos can be stored on a tiny drive somewhere, and people all over the world can read it instantly.

If it weren't for intellectual property rights issues, payment issues and advertising concerns, books and newspapers would have disappeared a few years ago.

 

[ls99]

Good news, one of the small town papers nearby Just raised their price from $.50 to $.75 for the daily and from $1.00 to $1.50 for the Sunday's.

Looks like another paper will Byte the dust soon.

 

[clifp]

Newspaper are dead, they just don't know it yet. I stopped my local newspaper about a year ago and I don't miss it. As far as coupons go, Costco mails me/hands out 80% of the coupons I use. The remaining coupons I use are from ecouponshawaii.com or similar sites. I go to the website search for a particular category print the coupons I need, stick them in the car and I'm done. For those people with iPhones, Blackberries etc you can send them to your phone, and many merchant will accept/ scan the coupon from your phone.

Classified ads, craigslist or ebay.
International news: Google news, WSJ, Washington Post
Local News, the local newspapers website is a pretty good source until they go out of business.

As far as the I don't like to read online crowd. The raves I've heard about the Kindle mean this maybe a thing of the past, cause the Kindle is far more portable than than any Sunday paper. So if the readability is superior.

I don't think journalism is close to being dead, but as mechanism for delivering information, and readers to advertising, newspaper are extraordinarily inefficient method.

 

[Amethyst]

One of the very few real bones of contention between me and my husband is his addiction to newsprint. He doesn't like to read from a computer screen and he likes to work the newspaper crossword puzzles. I keep telling him we could save over $1,000 a year--enough to buy lots of crossword puzzle subscriptions--if he'd read the papers on line, but he clings to his messy paper that gets the carpet filthy. I think he absorbs the news through his pores. He says they'll pry his Sunday New York Times out of his cold, dead hands.

Personally, I can't wait till newspapers are all online [though I surely don't want real journalism to fade away--I call the schlock on the blogs, etc. "Frankennews."] At that point, I will hook up his HDTV to a PC as a monitor...his Temple of Ludditism will fall and he will have to read the paper online.