Newspapers » Stand Aside

Print News hitting roadblocks, cont.

In an addition to my ongoing series on the increasing difficulties print news companies are encountering, I bring you a story from the West Coast.

The San Francisco Chronicle is said to cut 1/4 of their newsroom employees by the end of summer. Management decided to go through with this move as well as being open to voluntary buyouts, at a time when the SFChronicle may be experiencing high losses due to the changing world of media. They attribute the layoffs to ‘cut costs and adapt to a changing media marketplace’. It is an effort to outweigh the costs of running a newspaper during a time when most consumers are getting their news from free online sources. Also falling advertising revenue can be included in their reasons for cutting back on staff.

I have said before that newspapers are enduring a changing landscape of which they used to be champions of. Personally I read most of my news from a variety of online sources including bloggers,
MSM news sites, and news aggregators. I still firmly believe that newspapers do have an incredible readership and they are able to survive as we have seen in the recent years. It may be that they must learn to live off of less than 20% profit margins which is completely possible. Although I do not believe that cutting news staff is the smartest move for struggling papers. A lot of my news comes first from print and television reporters who are the ones out pursuing stories; I found this out by merely sourcing out a story that I read online. Trace it back to the original reporter. Losing these original reporters could very well let more stories go unheard and un-spread.

Invaluable news from our beloved Boulder source

I’ve known about it for years. Delved into it every now and then for kicks. But until now, I don’t think I have ever been hooked.

UNVEIL: The Onion News Network– America’s Finest News Source now in video

The ONN will be generating hilarious content in a ‘serious’ light based on current events yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I was reading the CBS news article on ONN and The Onion’s Pres. Sean Mills who said, "We want as many people to see our news reports as possible … We can work out a deal with YouTube when they’re ready."
This is awesome! More skrag to add to the catapult preparing for the launch of Murdoch Video United [my take on an expected collaboration between media giants to create an online portal for their content]. I would hope, though, that Mills as well as others at The Onion do not take this jump lightly. It is a major move for them, possibly breaking into the ranks of loyal viewers of Jon Stuart and Steven Colbert.

"I think there is a demand for a 24-hour news
network that isn’t a parody like ‘The Daily Show’ … People want to get
the truth with a level of seriousness and integrity that only the Onion
can bring." –Mills says characterizing the show as a serious, traditional network news source. I believe they will go live this coming Tuesday, April 3, 2007.

Newspapers still hitting big with politickers

A very good friend of mine happened to email me an interesting article [if you don't want to register with WT.com then email me and I will send you a transcript of the article.] he found in the Washington Times
. It touches on a subject that has frequented my posts, the popularity and utility of newspapers versus internet media. Jennifer Harper of WT wrote on March 13, 2007,

"Political insiders turn to the old standby for updates, even in the age of blogs and cable news. The
traditional newspaper is the most popular ‘destination for political
news,’ according to ‘The State of the News Media 2007,’ a 700-page
report released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism."

She goes on to say in the article that a major component of newspaper readership is due to the "political junkies" those people who follow politics "closely". However, I beg to differ Jennifer. The fact that "newspaper readership has dropped 20 percent since 1992" is a bigger component to the livelihood or death of print news than a host of political junkies getting their "fix" from papers. In fact, now that politicians are using the internet and YouTube as major outlets for their campaigns one could go as far to say that the brunt of news is begotten online.

Many newspapers themselves are realizing the impact of an online presence and are encouraging their journalist staff to contribute to their own blogs. Check out USA Today and their grasp of internet media. They have incorporated blogs, classifieds, and the well-known formerly paper-unique crosswords and sudoku. The point is that newspapers still and probably will always have some role in our society. Now however it will probably have to be a lot more dynamic.

Advent Guardian 2.0

The Guardian, a prominent paper based out of London, announced that they will be making the switch to a prominently online publication. Owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable organization which believes in keeping the paper completely independent from outside financial influence, –The Guardian has a daily circulation as reported in 2005 of over 300,000 copies in the UK which is on the lower readership bracket compared to the other dailies such as The Daily Telegraph which reports its readership at over 900,000.

Hopefully this move by Guardian chiefs and editors to convert to a wholly online publication will boost readership for the historical paper. Who knows, maybe pixelized news will convert some non-Guardian readers to pick up the "paper" news to compare with what they see on their screens. Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine puts the whole matter into a more detailed construct as he was present when the announcement was made. Check out his post, ‘The web is preeminent’.

There are bound to be more advents of paper to pixel conversions in our future. Let’s just wait and see.

News Publishers Getting a Run for Their Money

Rolling through my daily reads I came upon a post by Robert Gorell of FutureNow. Newspapers, as I’ve been discussing lately, seem to be leaning toward increasingly irrelevant forms of getting news. Robert brings up an interesting point concerning publishers; are they growing weary of newspapers being given a run for their money by online news and television? One has to wonder if those holding ownership and investment, albeit a great deal of investment as in Warren Buffett’s case, will ultimately be the death of the paper news medium. Are they willing to risk their money to try and hold out against the internet onslaught? Nahhh– They will just convert their paper to pixels. I.e.– see USA Today, embracing the social media craze and a revamped website. But there are others such as philanthropist Eli Broad concerned about the future of newspapers, specifically the L.A. Times, "I believe that a newspaper is a great civic asset and that ownership
is best in the hands of foundations or wealthy families that want to
own it for reasons other than maximizing profits… I also believe newspapers should remain in local hands." See article by USNews.com.

Publishers these days have the assets to keep a newspaper going which is bringing in less than significant numbers. Money makes the world go round. Will their money keep the papers rolling around the world???

More to come later, got some paperwork to get through.

Print News hitting roadblocks, cont.

Invaluable news from our beloved Boulder source

Newspapers still hitting big with politickers

Advent Guardian 2.0

News Publishers Getting a Run for Their Money

Archives

@krispatel