Spend a Penny
You have to spend money to make money, so they say. There are times I doubt some in the newspaper business believe this. For years it's been apparent the distribution people for the Washington Post know when school is not in session at the University. UMD on these occasions experiences no-delivery days where you can walk from one side of campus to the other and not find a paper anywhere. I don't subscribe, but I am a 6 day a week newstand buyer. I've commented on this before so I won't belabor the point. It seems this forms a metaphor of sorts. Their fear of not making a sale leads them not to even try. The newspaper business is in a defensive crouch they can't get out of. I was nursing this grievance earlier when I saw that Ann Marie Lipinski editor of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Editor Quits as Tribune Cuts Deeper - washingtonpost.com, and David Hiller publisher of the Los Angeles Times
Tribune's Second Shoe Drops: 'L.A. Times' Publisher Quits
David Hiller , both in Sam Zell's Tribune corporation immersed in the middle of mass newsroom cuts, either fled or were rousted from that company. The Baltimore Sun is also in that family
Baltimore Sun staffers applied for buyouts. This set off another round of bemoaning the death of journalism
Poynter Online - Romenesko:. The idea the Tribune's executives seem to have is the remaining writers will simply produce more copy, because all column inches are equal
No Joy in Zellville | American Journalism Review:. I seem to recall that either this set of new newspaper company owners or a previous set were making pronouncements on privileging (vapid) localism over critical national and international coverage. That this is what a paper like the LAT or Baltimore Sun ought to be doing. Others will handle news from other places. This leads only to narrowing awareness, manufactured consent, and giving elites a freer hand to conduct the people's business in their own interest. That is the effect, whether intentional or not. It is a fools errand to believe that ever continuing rounds of cuts and layoffs will restore newspapers to relevance. Burning down their open web-content sites as though the only true value of a paper lay in the rolls of flattened wood-pulp on the loading dock and not in their newsroom and bureau staffs. It's all luddism and tunnel vision, a reflexive defensive crouch. The advertising models for web content admittedly are horrendous. Existing web ads are too small, too busy and too amateurish. As yet they also are mostly in only weak and marginal categories. Another thing I think I see which is puzzling is rotary serves of ads, which means you often can't go back to a page and see a given ad a second time even if you wanted to. Frankly I suspect the true value of paper-based advertising is overestimated, and that of web advertising underestimated. On this balance (it is what advertisers are willing to pay) web-available copy is killing the business. Offhand I'd say that what pays the bills for a city newspaper are color supplements and coupons for local big retail, that and classifieds. These are destinations in print, if done right and with added value they could be destinations on-line. Papers like the Washington Post have shown some understanding of the need for a digital content distribution which preserves the crafted balance of the physical entity. This through animals like
e-Replica | Washington Post a high end proprietary pdf reader delivering a digital componented version of the print edition on subscription. Together with all ad copy and those lovely full page political ads: Lockheed, Boeing, the NRA, or even the ones the United Church of Christ occasionally runs which otherwise you never see online.
The needs of the user are paramount though. I only desire to read one paper full through. The Washington Post is the only paper where I would consider digital subscription. For other news needs I take a citing and pointing approach. Being able to put URLs in a web log entry is optimum, though I could quote and cite to lesser (and more didactic) effect. The idea is a virtual library reading room, the enabling technology is RSS feeds and other aggregators. I view this technology as like a personalized clipping service, like the "early bird news" I remember from working in the Pentagon. One thing, newspaper and other journalistic entities should not presume to do is get in-between the user, citizens, and what they try to do with the information they are given.
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