RIP Birmingham News, Press-Register, Huntsville Times

Advance is finally cutting out the pretense and killing off the print products for good.

https://www.al.com/news/2022/11/ala...-will-stop-publishing-newspapers-in-2023.html

 

Probably The Oregonian as well. It might be somewhat good at least, as much as papers talked about "digital first" - they were dependant on the print money - but I'm guessing the returns on each don't make even the print product profitable.

 

Here's The Wall Street Journal story. WSJ News Exclusive | Alabama’s Three Largest Newspapers to Stop Printing Next Year

 

Does Advance produce a differentiated product for each Alabama market? Or is the on-line version essentially the same for all three markets?

 

I think Alabama was the first market Advance reduced from producing a daily print copy. I am sure that Alabama is the trial balloon for the rest of the chain.

 

The domino effect is now on the clock. ... Who's got next?

 

I am Jack's total lack of surprise. My parents live in one of the three markets served by these papers and they complain bitterly on how craptastically poor the printed product that is (sometimes) dropped off on their doorstep.

It's sad for me that I worked at one of these publications as a stringer/phone guy and remember the good old days. I learned a lot in that old building that helped me in my later jobs. Now it's mostly error-filled digital clickbait interspersed with an occasionally good investigative story and op-eds that insult the very Alabamians that still read the damned website.

What a shame.

 

Distribution these days has to be a nightmare. How far would you have to drive to chuck 300 papers?

 

No word on if this means I can stop fishing the unwanted TMP paper out of my driveway each week.

 

Elsewhere in Advanceland, Harrisburg prints three days, and Syracuse prints seven days in Harrisburg but does home distribution on only three of those days.

I would not be surprised ...

 

I had to threaten to contact an attorney if they continued to ignore my requests to throw their shit in our driveway. They finally stopped.

 

I shouldn't be surprised anymore at papers printing four hours and 300 miles away, but this still surprises me. And I don't understand why it wouldn't be the other way around if Syracuse prints seven days.