Comments on: Newspapers' Woes Worsening

Rocky Mountain News Is Latest Casualty, S.F. Chronicle May Be Next; What Are Implications For Nation Of Industry's Problems?

[missingamerica]

I quit newspapers when the cartoons started to get political.
Posted by mav547166 at 4:11 PM : Feb 28, 2009

lollll...I think that was shortly after Gutenberg invented the printing press...

[mav547166]

I quit newspapers when the cartoons started to get political.

[missingamerica]

"..and a couple of smaller, independent "muckraker" papers, who usually get the facts straight YEARS ahead of the mainstream liberal rags."

Posted by UpajOs at 3:58 PM : Feb 28, 2009

Got any examples? You know - like the names of these "muckraker" papers, and examples of the facts they and they alone got right "YEARS ahead of the mainstream liberal rags"?

Perhaps America could use information sources similar to yours, eh?

[UpajOs]

I agree with much of what platteman says. I got tired of the liberal slant in the San Jose Mercury News over 20 years ago and dropped my subscription. I've been getting by with AM radio, the Internet and a couple of smaller, independent "muckraker" papers, who usually get the facts straight YEARS ahead of the mainstream liberal rags. The suck-up performance of the mainstream media during the most recent presidential election amounts to a gross dereliction of duty. Good riddance to every one of them that goes down. There are plenty of better practitioners that are ready to step in and fill the void.

[missingamerica]

"What Are Implications For Nation Of Industry Problems?"

Duh - that is easy. More corporations seeking to control the existing broadcast, cable, and satellite media.

After all, they have an object lesson in Rupert Murdoch; everything said or done by Fox was all about loosening up any restrictions upon the rate at which Rupert could accumulate wealth.

And it worked, for a while...until the economy reacted like any other pyramid that has had its foundation blocks kicked out from under it and toppled over.

[grabandgo]

Newspapers are finished.
The internet has done them in.
They can only survive as on line papers.

[ubrew12]

independenti said: "[San Fran has] A beggar or more like 50 beggars on every corner and no police in sight to protect you. " And how many of them were raised in SanFran? None. Ask sometime and you'll find they come from (mostly conservative) areas all over the country, abandoned even by their own families (thats conservatism for you). They come to San Fran because of its reputation as a liberal enclave: that it'll tax its rich to help pay for the poor and downtrodden. Frankly, they come because San Fran hasn't forgotten the promise of Ellis Island, like the rest of the country has. But San FRan is overwhelmed by these people, as are most cities. Most of these folks are from small towns, conservative American towns that cast off their poor and unwanted just as easily as they drive 'to the city' to get an abortion. Anything rather than stain their tidy, lily-white world.

[dprice123-2009]

I spent 22 years with McClatchy Newspapers. Ten years ago most people in the newspaper industry did not see the internet coming. They should of but held to the belief that they were better than anyone else.They banked on their reporting and journalism skills....but in the meantime outsourced many of the non-reporting jobs. Most newspapers not give a Rats*** about the customer. They only assume what the customer wants. Unless their is some kind of immediate financial gain most newspapers will not make any changes.All you people over the age of Forty....Remember the Milkman who used to deliver Milk to your doorstep.We will have the same memory of newspapers 10 years down the road. Maybe sooner.

Local and regional newspapers are critical to our quality of life, but there is no reason that they cannot succeed on-line. Newspapers and merchants have to learn to do effective on-line advertising.

I miss the ads that I used to read in the hard copy editions, and if they were available in the on-line addition, I would use them, and I believe others would too if they were user-friendly. It isn't hard to do.

The supermarket weekly specials, the department store sales, the electronic store inserts -- all can be posted and linked to. These ads work well on line; there are many user-friendly formats already in use. Newspapers, merchants and internet readers just have to pitch in to create, purchase and click on these ads.

[850Rick]

At least from my point of view the Rocky Mtn News was an excellent paper, better than that of the Denver Post, but with the advent of online 24/7 news there is no need for printed paper. The only consumers hurt by this will be those that do not have PC access and rely on a paper version. It's too bad their management didn't see this coming a long time ago. I really don't think the unions had much to do with it because it is the product or service that is no longer needed. United Parcel Service is a union shop but their product or service will always be needed so they will survive.

[jimmyc1955]

I perceive newspapers as failiing for a simple reason - news is acquired for free in so many other places - or at least it's perceived as free. Your posting on this site is proof that people seek news in many places. I used to get two a day - now I don't get any except Sunday's. I don't like all the paper around the house, find them slow and behind the news. Their only saving grace is that the papers will often have more details than the online and certainly the TV news.

For those who see EVERYTHING through some colored lens called "republican" or "democrat" - if your finding this story as evidence supporting why your position is winning or why the other is loosing - PLEASE start thinking again instead of behaving like a raving lunatics. The worlds isn't about left vs. right - it is about people and you who choose to see the world in simplistic camps or us vs them or right vs left - you are a poison making any chance of improving the world harder.

[highkey11]

ANOTHER UNION SUCCESS STORY: Certainly rather humorous -- Both the Rocky Mountain News and SF Chronicle are hard-core Union advocates for everybody else - yet their own Unions would not take pay cuts after voting themselves raise for years - Steel, Airlines, Ship Building, Autos ... Newspapers
-- Obama has declared Unions are not lobbies - more industry to die

[Walter L. Johnson]

What you are seeing in the demise of the Rocky Mountain News is these factors:

1) Years ago both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News started distributing morning editions. Before one did mornings and the other did afternoons, so there was a reason to get both Newspapers, but that reason has disappeared. If my memory is correct, the Rocky Mountain News published a morning edition in a compact format easy to read on the bus or carpool to work, while the Denver Post did an afternoon edition one could read before supper.

2) The Rocky Mountain News was always the more conservative newspaper, just as I believe the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is, and right now being conservative politically is not a popular position to take.

3) Two newspaper towns have been the exception for years, so what is remarkable is how long the going out of business newspapers have survived.

4) Advertisers have been forced to cut back in ad spending for lack of sustainable sales. For example, Fry's Electronics in Willsonville, OR, used to have no ad that was good for more than five days, but now it does a good for seven day ad in the Oregonian. Small cuts by advertisers ad up.

5) Newspapers have not done a good job of integrating online and print content. Business Week for example does a better job by giving subscribers earlier access to online content, and since newspapers always trim stories they could charge an annual fee to get the rest of a printed story instead of just duplicating content.

6) Some advertisers make their print ads available online, so a person doesn't need a newspaper to see the ads.

7) Newspapers haven't cut costs quickly enough in response to declining ad revenue, while they should have reduced both staff and pages in proportion to ad revenue drops.

8) Newspapers are always the last place to find national news. In general they would do better I believe if they dropped national news and concentrated on state and local news. My family goes first to the internet to find national news, which makes what the newspapers report seem like old news all the time, while at the same time state and local news is chronically under reported.

9) Newspapers are not as useful as they would be if they reported before events, instead of right after the event. By this I mean when annual festivals, etc. are upcoming, that is the time to print the story about last year's festival along with dates and times for this year's event.. Knowing something I didn't go to was a good event to go to, means nothing immediately after an event because it is too late to go and I won't remember it again next year.

10) Some newspapers simply can't afford to compete or face too many smaller local competitors with more interesting and neighborhood or suburb focused stories. In the case of the San Francisco Chronicle it may have simply become too expensive to distribute because of the high cost of living in San Francisco and California's high fuel costs that come from not having a pipeline to the Gulf Coast..

11) Newspapers wait too long to change their business plan. It is too late if a newspaper is already financially stressed. Among other things newspapers need to do is compete more effectively against eBay and Craigs List for classified ads. The could be hosting a website for goods under $500 with banner ads very specific to each category of merchandise a person is looking to sell or buy. Those focused ads are worth more to advertisers. randomly placed ads don't add value for advertisers. A new car dealer has a good reason for example to place ads on the same page as used cars. If a person is looking say at Toyota used cars, all foreign car dealers will be interested in having an adjacent banner ad for new cars. Often a consumer can get a better deal on a new car including financing than buying a one or two year old car which carries higher interest rate financing.. Likewise individual used car sellers, who get less for cars than dealers, might want to advertise next to new car ads for the same model or size series.
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[DamOTclese]

I like this quote from Columbia Journalism Review Executive Editor Mike Hoyt: "...quite sad." How silly. There is nothing sad about a dinosaur who has become obsolete and irrelevant dieing out.

These right wing extremist newspapers are so heavilly biased and irrelevant, of course they're dieing out. Newspapers around the world are driven by money motivations and as such they cater to the Corporate fascists, degrees of Republican extremism and treason that people don't swallow any more.

It's far better for people to get their news and information off of the Internet, via IndyMedia channels where the actual _people_ -- the citizens of communities -- report the news as it's happening and after it happened, presented with opportunity for rebuttle, commentary, and fact checking.

Good riddance to the Corporate Christofascist extremist media.

[jmwest99]

IMHO, the problem with charging for online access and why it's never worked is that papers keep trying to charge the full subscription price. Once you've gotten used to getting your news on the Net, you're not willing to restrict yourself to a single paper, and even if I could afford 5 or 10 different subscriptions, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. But I'd be willing to pay something like $10 year to a bunch of different papers that I look at from time to time. I'll bet that papers with nationwide appeal would wind up with subscribers they never could have gotten before. I've never paid a dime for, say, the NY Times, but I'd gladly give them my $10 each year, and I bet a lot of other people they'd otherwise never make money from would, too. I love online papers because I can read articles on the same subject from liberal and conservative points of view. But it's not going to do me much good if all the papers go out of business.

[steeepe]

I think that newspapers are vital. They would be even better if the journalists investigated stories less superficially. It would also help if media conglomerates didn't own almost all the media in a big market. We seem to be heading away from more or less objective news and toward opinion. That's not too bad, but it helps to have the facts to form opinions. Maybe they can make a go of it if they find a way to make money with their online versions that might help subsidize the print version.

[Bobbo222]

Newspapers - like many TV networks - no longer even pretend to have objectivity. In the era of 24/7 news cycles, there is no longer a need for anything other than an internet connection and access to a couple of cable news outlets.

To read day old news through a generally leftist perspective is a waste of time for any thinking person of any political point of view. Many of these failing newspapers are suitable for wrapping fish, and not much more. And they can no longer count on local and regional print advertisers. Add to this mix the huge debt incurred to buy these papers without substantial due diligence and unfavorable union contracts, and you've got a recipe for failure of dozens more of these rags.

If they are to recover, newspapers will need to restore objectivity in their news reporting, and broaden their presence in alternative media, particularly the internet. At least Hearst is getting creative with its new reader; but it won't be successful unless the content is fairly reported and interesting to read.

[LouDawg]

Honestly I don't care one bit about the demise of newspapers. If they actually did their job and did what the Founding Fathers intended, I might care.

Where were they during the housing bubble? Where were the stories about banks giving loans to unqualified people and Wall St packaging them to make big bonuses? There weren't any! And at the same time the newspapers were cheerleading the bubble and taking advertising money from real estate developers! I only read my local paper (online) for the sports section, that's it. They don't report the news. I say good riddance. The blogs are the only source for real news. The blogs were the only place that talked about the housing bubble.

[Newster1]

Papers are obsolete.
Posted by jamesguy "

In a large way, the demise of the PRINTED newspaper will be a good thing- the sheer waste of paper from trees, inks, printing presses and resources to produce, run and transport for a use once throw away newspaper is a complete waste. Most people never read every page either, especially in the normally big sunday editions. The entire sports section is a waste on me if I buy a paper- I never read it.

[Newster1]

These newspapers are failing because they got their man elected, now many don't need to hear their point of view.
Posted by platteman "

Wrongo, they are failing like 33 OTHERS and more to come because of the rotten ECONOMY and because people wont pay for news on-line when they can get it FREE.
Newspaper copy sales are not what keeps them afloat, that 50 or 75 cent paper costs as much to produce, bundle and DELIVER as it generates and that revenue only offsets MOST of the costs, it is the ADVERTISING revenues that generate the money- the $15,000 full page Ford car ads, the full page Macy's clothing ads, the full page diamond jewelry ads, te full page 23K gold Cartier or Bulova wrist watch ads, the paid color insert ads on sunday, the classified ads, 'cept few are buying new cars, appliances, houses, mink coats, gold watches or diamonds these days.