General state of the industry thread.

Wonder what their print deadline is. Football Fridays is usually one of those things you can easily find stringers for, or at least a couple people you can trust to make some phone calls.

 

The biggest game of the year was happening - and they didn't have updates. I guess MaxPreps is doing the scoreboard.

 

Provided you have the budget to pay freelancers, of course.

Lot of places can't even do that anymore.

 

I think most newspapers that are owned by big companies are encouraged to have no stringers. The suits at the top don't care if Podunk high school, ranked No. 2 in USA Today's poll, is covered in a big game against No. 8 Filibuster High. I mean if you pay a stringer it's probably got to be at least 50 bucks to 100 a story and no way corporate is approving that. Just my take.

 

One of the biggest dailies in Minnesota is dealing with more complaints of subscribers, after changes in printing for the Rochester Post-Bulletin meant a 9 p.m. deadline on Friday nights and the absence of prep football coverage in Saturday's paper. Enough complaints led the editor to publish this.

 

Readers who refuse to read online are going to be like dinosaurs ... extinct.

 

They're usually the boomers who are out the door anyway, right?

 

What is a standard print 7-day a week subscription price these days - $40?

 

"Not every reader is willing to read the news online, but we're finding that more and more (and more) readers are."

So I'm sure that's translating into tons of ads on the website and smart phone app, right? Right?

 

The experienced print journalists are not being replaced in kind. Those positions and their high salaries are not refilled. Instead, you get new J-school graduates who spend a year or so at a Patch-type site and then get hired at the web site of the local daily. Usually, there is a distinction between working at the paper’s web operation versus being a staff writer for the newspaper. Look at how Newhouse has been doing this “separate and distinct” dual set-up.

 

I guess there is the same immediacy in rushing to get stuff online - but there was nothing like those Friday night scrambles back to the office to make the 11 p.m. deadline, writing the story in your head, hoping your hands dethawed by the time you arrived so you could type. Best journalism training I ever received. The cherry on top was going home with your days work folded in the crook of your arm, hot of the presses.
I know that makes me sound old, I'm not that old - but I feel bad for the journos of today for missing out on that.

 

Wow. "We've closed our bakery and are getting our loaves from another one but they have other priorities and our delivery trucks are always running late. Please bear with us while we sell you the stale ones from the previous day at a higher price instead of the fresh ones we used to offer."

Wonder why that's not working as a strategy?