Memphis rumor — Paper will drop to five days a week

MEDIC!!!
Elvis is spinning in Graceland. Rumors of this began circulating late Friday. The CA has been the cash cow many thought it would be when the Press-Scemiter went out of business.
Let's hope none of these rumors become fact.

 

Yeah, I keep going back to the situation we had here after Katrina, when power was out for several weeks, the TV and radio stations were slow getting back on the air, and the Internet was down. How did people in the community get their information? That's right, from a good old-fashioned newspaper.

 

That's the new trend over the next couple of years - besides more job cuts.

 

Just think, too, we'd have to learn to write and report once again without benefit of the Internet as a resource. Those of us 40 and over who know how to do this would be worth our weight in gold.

 

We went from Monday-Friday to Tuesday-Saturday years ago and still hear about the lack of a Monday paper.

 

Let us not overlook the fact that it's Scripps -- a chain founded and established with newspapers at the core and determined to shutter, instead of sell, every damn one of them.

 

Isn't Memphis one of the poorest, least-educated cities in the US? I agree this is a bellwether thing if it happens, but it's not that surprising that it's happening there first.

 

Memphis is a good town to get your ass kicked.
Once upon a time it was a decent newspaper town.

 

This business is run by absolute idiots. So anything is possible. Papers gave up on the print product in favor of the nonrevenue producing internet. Instead of catering to those who read newspaper sport sections (adults) and who always will read print sport sections, they thought they had to cater to the kids and those who want immediate updates on the web. There will always be a market for newspapers but they will be dead before long and it all started when papers devalued their product by giving it away for free on the Web and posting breaking news on the Web for free as well. Free doesn't pay the bills. The old way paid the bills. Now there is no reason to buy a newspaper. Get rid of the free news on the Web and there will be a reason to buy the paper again.

 

You assume the newspapers are the only folks capable of reporting the news and that people who get their news from the Web wouldn't have that option if papers didn't publish online.

Fact is, other sources are and will be available online. Papers are not going to keep people from getting news from the Web by not publishing online. All that would do is keep people from getting the news from the paper.

Historically, paid circulation has been a small part of the revenue equation for papers. It basically pays the cost of distributing the paper, and maybe a part of the coast of printing it.

The Web has far less distribution cost.

What needs to evolve further is a revenue model for generating money from Web audience. That is still evolving. But if papers wait until somebody figures that all out to go online, by the time they get there, readers will have developed new news habits, getting information from other sources available online.

You can't hide from the future.

 

The solution to the online problem is simple — make the news aggregators pay for the stories they post.
That's what the book publishers forced Google to do. Newspaper can do the same thing.
And also tell the AP that they can do what please with its original content, its staff produced stuff, but they can no longer sell the photo pickups or the rewrites they do to online sites without giving the originating papers a cut.
AP is the enemy, a competitor online, and should be treated as such.

 

This is the smartest comment and most underrated part of this entire discussion. People assume that locals go online to get the news they would normally get from the printed product, so if the content is put behind a pay wall the problem is solved. Wrong. People will go elsewhere, and they do.

The nutjobs are easy to find online, but there are a lot of people doing a lot of good things.