Newspapers: Still important?

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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.
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I'm willing to pay $1.99/mo. for N.Y. Times headline stories for the Kindle for the convenience, rather than using the laptop.

It could be years before I go though their 2-week samples. Now, I've got The New Yorker free for two issues; I've had no trouble remembering to cancel before incurring a charge.

N.B., you really aren't hearing from a lot of Kindle owners on this forum, just a handful of us who can't resist responding.:rolleyes:
 
I do like reading newspapers. Do get annoyed by phony and biased and error riddled articles. Doing crossword puzzles is also a pastime of mine. No reason the news organizations can't use recycled paper.

I can't get comfortable with electronic tablets, can't roll them up and stick them in my pocket (to continue the puzzle later). Or slap the rolled paper under my arm while walking from the news stand to the coffee shop.

Besides I do despise another fricking gizmo that requires batteries, recharging. The electronic tablets are too big and cumbersome, brittle. Their tactile information through my fingertips suck. I can read a paper without scrolling with any kind of pointer thingy. You can't snap the tablet like a newspaper, with that satisfying pop. Next thing you know they'll stick GPS in them so they can track you and provide you with helpful local advertising for underwear or ice ream etc. No thanks.

Papers keep raising their prices to offset declining buyers. Perhaps their business model needs review. Like accuracy, impartial reporting of events. Perhaps less sensationalizing of the mundane.

Good investigative reporting without political slant.

But what do I know, I'm just a reader.
 
Papers keep raising their prices to offset declining buyers. Perhaps their business model needs review. Like accuracy, impartial reporting of events. Perhaps less sensationalizing of the mundane.

Good investigative reporting without political slant.

Talk about driving a stake through the heart...
 
I think with a lot of the younger people being online that less are interested in getting a paper.

Older folks have to have the paper so they might be the ones actually keeping them in business.

I have no desire to get a paper....but I try to minimize my exposure to news...it upsets me!

Jim
 
I quit the paper because I was just opening them up to flatten them to recycle. Yes, I had found the Internet!
 
. . . but once they started giving content away they shot themselves in the foot.

The WSJ is having financial problems, but I think they are healthier than the NYT and some others. They have stubbornly clung to charging for online content, believing their product is worth it, and I think this is working better than giving everything away. Subscriptions are not very expensive--I got an offer for $100 for the print and online versions for an entire year. For this price I can see the whole thing online if I want, search their old articles, and they even send emails to you if you like when they have a new article on a company or industry you've flagged.

But, maybe the successful model will be micropricing for each article--maybe ten cents to read a complete article. For this to work, I think newspapers (or whatever we end up calling the industry of journalists who produce daily stories) will need to prevent "leakage" of content onto the free web.
 
I, like others have a habit of reading the newspaper in the AM over coffee. I often have the TV turned on to a news channel. Seems like overkill, I know, but that's been my AM routine for years.

The cost of the paper delivered seven days a week is only about $20/month. I have been looking at the cost of $240 annually as something that I could probably get along without, as the actual news that I get from it is not really unique.
 
I think with a lot of the younger people being online that less are interested in getting a paper.
Older folks have to have the paper so they might be the ones actually keeping them in business.
I have no desire to get a paper....but I try to minimize my exposure to news...it upsets me!
Jim
i hear what ur saying jim, i also try to minimize my exposue to the news. unfortunatly the system is such that bad news is what sells most and hence is what's pushed. the internet and its ubiquity however allows us to filter what sources and topics we choose to learn about. it's amazing how much more aware people are of the world around them now and as time progresses i can only see less and less physical news papers being mainstream.
 
I grew up on the Washington Post. I used to deliver it as a teen and read it everyday. The content has gotten sloppy. Lots of grammatical errors is very distracting to me. Over the course of three yrs, the price for the daily went from .25 to .35, then to .50 and now .75 plus .05 tax....ouch! Some claim the latest increase was caused by declining circulation due to <free> online access......


They have a zillion reporters....many with celebrity status that hardly ever contribute. They have cloned themselves into an "express" edition which is distributed for free at the subway stations...it has more advertising than news. The price of the paper is only supposed to pay for production/distribution and the payroll/profit comes from adverstising. Advertising just won't cut it when the economy is in the tank. I hope they figure out a new business model. Much of the info disseminated online and on air is initiated by newspapers that don't get any revenue for thier effort.
 
ok, Al...ya got me! Let's see if I could say this without sounding too whiney. I find myself reading sentances in the newspaper over and over and finding they don't make sense or I can't tell what the writer means, or the meaning is unclear.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a paid contributor. Forum posts are written quickly without
benefit of an editor or spellcheck.
 
We subscribed to the L.A. Times for as long as I can remember, and it was at one time a world class publication imo. But like the others it has been on a long downhill slide and the cuts have finally ruined it for me. I might have continued it still, even though it basically is fish wrap advertisements now, but the 1 eyed incompetent knuckle head that delivers it couldn't seem to get it to my house on a regular basis and I got sick of complaining to the circulation people. Finally said screw off, and started getting the local paper now, which at least has news from the east side of the county where I live. You'd think we were in another country (well we might as well be, but that's another rant for another time) as far as the Times is concerned.
 
Why, when free software (FireFox) is available to do this automatically?
I think I've got Firefox set up right, but it catches only some errors when I write a post. If I re-open the post to edit it, it catches everything. I don't know why.
And, it only seems to catch spelling errors. It does nothing for errors in logic. Maybe that will be in the next version.
 
As I heard/read somewhere yesterday on the subject of newspapers going out of business and readers receiving the news online~ "Where do you think most of the online news comes from in the first place." Good point to ponder.
 
I haven't bought a newspaper in years, except when away from home in a location where the internet is not easily available. I prefer to get my news and commentary on the web. Currently I have a Favourites list with approximately 20 international publications, from Reuters to the Guardian. When I am interested in a story I will triangulate the viewpoints by researching what different publications are saying about it. I'm interested in the information, not in cutting down trees and getting inky hands while wrestling with huge pages (very difficult to do elegantly in the middle seat on a plane).
 
As I heard/read somewhere yesterday on the subject of newspapers going out of business and readers receiving the news online~ "Where do you think most of the online news comes from in the first place." Good point to ponder.

I'm having trouble with this. Are you saying that the online media get their news from newspapers?
 
I'm having trouble with this. Are you saying that the online media get their news from newspapers?
If it is hard information, then yes, the online media gets their information primarily from the traditional journalistic sources. The opinion/editorializing they make up on their own. As far as I can tell, there's very little investigative-type reporting going on in the online media.

If the traditional pres (especially print) goes away, so do the snoops.
 
So the guys at cnn.com sit around, and every 20 minutes someone goes out to the doorstep to see if the paper has arrived. ;)
 
A new mix of content and product to deliver it will emerge. All media is dependent on advertising. Print will survive in some formats and some markets. Online will grow. Online will also go well beyond computers to other electronic feeds on smart phones and pda's as it is today. In the end a paradigm shift will take place between all of these as well as radio and tv. I find it exciting, but think the print side will still have a place. The subscriptions don't pay for much...advertising makes it all possible. Local vs. national news needs are different. Citizen journalism is growing with blogs, etc. In the end a well run media product will emerge. Some of the print media in trouble hasn't embraced the future enough or had simply too much debt and too much staff. Also 2 paper markets have been a failure waiting to happen for years. Anyway...my 2 cents worth...a lot of change, but also opportunity ahead.
 
In today's NYTimes:

In Denver, Residents Lament the Closing of a Newspaper

The public's view:

The kitschy restaurant, decorated with an assortment of vintage lunch boxes and toys, had the one remaining large paper in town, The Denver Post, to offer customers. There were not many takers — and not because diners were carrying a torch for The Rocky.

“I don’t know anyone my age who has time in the morning to read a newspaper,” said Chris Olivier, 37, a retail manager who said he gets his daily news from dozens of Web sites and a few niche publications circulating in specific Denver neighborhoods. “It’s sad to see such a huge part of our state’s history lost, but the market is moving, and newspapers haven’t moved with it. They don’t get the Web.”

...

The Rocky’s passing was unfortunate, [Linda Maier, 61, an administrative assistant at Denver Water] said — particularly because she thinks one of its reporters, Jerd Smith, did an outstanding job of explaining Colorado’s continuing water woes and keeping the local authorities honest.

“She really knows her stuff and wrote things people didn’t always want to hear,” Ms Maier said. “But they were the things that needed to be said.

“I hope she finds another way to tell those stories because I’m afraid they won’t be told without her.”

The view of the Journalists:

A small group of Rocky reporters who huddled one last time in the Denver Newspaper Agency’s building on Friday wondered about the absence of reporting, too, as their readers fled to the Web.

“They want the amount of print you would find on a cereal box, which is what you get online,” said Mike Pearson, 49, a features writer and editor for The Rocky for 21 years.

“They want headlines only and graphs that summarize everything without going into a lot of analysis. And they feel entitled to even the most complex and sophisticated news coverage for free.”

We seem to have a front-row seat to an historic event.
 
“They want the amount of print you would find on a cereal box, which is what you get online,” said Mike Pearson, 49, a features writer and editor for The Rocky for 21 years.

Has this guy ever been online?
 
I am sortof a talk-radio junkie too. It is amazing how much radio commentary is driven by various local and national newspaper stories. If the source is NY Times, it is cited to give authority to the piece. Often it is USA TODAY which is usually not cited, but I recognize the piece if I've browsed the publication which is distributed free at most hotels.

Also, most of the weekend roundtable talking head shows feature newspaper journalists from around the country. Right now, Im watching a daily cable sportscast called Washington Post Live.
 
“They want headlines only and graphs that summarize everything without going into a lot of analysis. And they feel entitled to even the most complex and sophisticated news coverage for free.”
Well, it wasn't the consumer who sat in the corporate boardroom and decided to give away all their content online. And yet it sounds like they are blaming consumers for consuming free services instead of paying for them. Yeah, that's the ticket.
 
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