Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

What is so stupid is that web advertising isn't even used the same way as print. Web is good for brand building and making quick impressions, like TV or radio. Clickthrough rates are so pathetic that they may as well not be mentioned. Print has more permanence and can be more descriptive and outline a clearer call to action.

I sold Yellow Pages (speaking of a dying industry) and online advertising for 3.5 years, talking with customers from Louisiana to Kentucky. You would be stunned how many small business owners swore by the results of their newspaper ads, ann the increase in sales they directly attributed to their print ads. For internet, you either do keyword buys, online directories or don't bother. And the first two categories are way too crowded for newspapers to credibly take market share.

 

A friend at a nearby weekly just got an email from a recruiter, inviting him to look on line at the job description for a reporter position. The description also included this:

As noted, journalism is on the forefront of a new frontier, meaning there's a level playing field for reporters. The middle ground is removed – no longer does copy move through a 3rd party path of editors and copy-editors prior to publication. The story is written and posted immediately. Editors will still review some of your work, but it will be after it’s live. And, instead of receiving feedback from a subjective 3rd party, in the digital age measures are quantitative and performance based -- you can leverage real time data to know how you’re doing. You'll want to know how many hits are you getting; is your interaction with social media engaging; are you helping to create interest in your story; if interest is petering out when you think it should be growing, are you stoking that interest via reader comment strings; are your stories getting enough attention for your work to be published in print? The measures are many and success requires that you understand your impact and use all the tools available to increase interest as appropriate.

Because this is an instant world, you must be quick on your feet and strong with grammar and self-editing. You’ll also need to be highly ethical because you don’t want to put anything out there that isn’t true. You will have a producer to talk to and collaborate with as you need them, but you live in the field – don’t have a desk or office, so being independent is key.

 

Fuck them and fuck what they've done to the state I love. May they live long enough to be homeless with nothing to do but watch the maggots crawl out of their festering sores.

 

Slappy, that makes me want to throw up.

Fuck all of them.

 

al.com: We don't need no stinking editors or copy editors.

 

Totally agree. What a mess.

 

The old military maxim goes "The first reports are always wrong." In Alabama, the word "first" will be removed from the sentence.

 

Wow.

 

That's one controversial cartoon. I don't think I'd have gone there... that said, you have to wonder how many Alabama government people might be thinking "hey, let's get away with some stuff... the papers won't report it..."

 

This cartoon was wrong to run, but there may be some truth behind it.

 

Oh? Do tell. Who do you think will pull a Bull Conner down here?

 

I am firmly in the "this well and truly sucks" camp in regards to these mass layoffs and what it means to the product going forward. Controversial opinion, I know. I'm still not sure I'm on board with the "fluffy kittens are cute" bandwagon yet. But this is something on which I can sign off.

That said, it's pretty arrogant to presume that all journalism in Alabama dies with this move. It's not in as good a shape as it was a year ago, for sure, but to act as though newspapers are the final defense between civility and 60's era racial abuse is ... dubious. I get that it's an exaggeration for effect, but it still misses the mark. Sometimes I think we have a little too high opinion of ourselves -- individually or collectively. I believe we (and I can say "we" again with a straight face, thank God) do good work and provide an important service to society, but the "last line of defense against a stupid, drunken chaos" meme that journos trot out from time to time is fairly overblown.