General state of the industry thread.

That's really sad. Ten years ago, I thought places like Garden City, or Scottsbluff, Nebraska, or Enid, OK, somewhat reasonably sized cities in isolated markets where there's little to no TV news coverage, would be where newspapers would survive. But they're dying just as fast there...

 

I have a question for the people on here who are suits or know suits at newspapers. My question is twofold and pardon my ignorance: 1.) How do newspaper "chains" afford paying the CEO the many millions they earn per year? I thought except for the NY Times and Washington Post no newspapers actually make money in the course of a calendar fiscal year. So where does this money come from?
2.) You hear incessantly about numbers of pageviews of stories and a reporter's value being judged at The Athletic and other places in terms of website pageviews. So how does this work? Do the newspaper sales staff insert ads into the copy of stories on the newspaper Website and the company that bought the ads pay in regard to how many views the story attained? Or, do the newspapers go to advertisers and say, "If you purchase these ads, we can guarantee you columnist Harvey Roberts and Titans' beat writer Nancy Jones will get you upwards of 20,000 views on each story and here's the proof?
How are these pageviews monetized in spread sheet format? This thread is entitled "State of the Industry Thread" so please tell us how news organizations make money in direct correlation with pageviews since the biggest buzzwords of the suits when they dress down reporters are "your pageviews are pedestrian and we have to let you go."
Thank you to the suits in advance. Educate us please.

 

A lot of the million dollar bonuses etc. are to CEOs at companies that also manage TV divisions in addition to print publications. The curious thing for me though are those weird on-line ads/pseudo-stories that don't look anything like advertising for a local store or product. If those are centralized and local outlets don't have control over them - a local outlet could be posting only a 10-15 percent profit each quarter, while those centralized ads are billed through the network and the local outlet doesn't see a dime of that cash.

 

The scam in corporate America: each company has a board of directors, and the board hires the CEO. But the board is made up of CEOs of other companies, and other top executives. So the board hires the CEO with what it says is a "market rate" salary for a CEO. Then that CEO gets onto other boards and does the same thing for other CEOs.

 

What a joke.

 

Here's What Magazines Lose When They Go Digital Only

Considering the SI, GannettHouse and McClatchey news - pretty good insight. Also answers the question about why digital advertising isn't gaining any traction.

 

If the first answer on that list isn't 'money', the goddamned story is a waste of time.

[EDIT] to be more clear, 'money of the chance to make enough money.'

 

Exhuming the thread because I just want to say something: Brad Nading must be a goddam superhero. Because right now, he is listed at every position at Garden City except publisher and advertising director (see photo). The person who was doing the news reporting left sometime in November.

Saturday's Garden City Telegram had no local stories. The only local items were an opinion column written by a former reporter, a photo page and the classifieds.

This newspaper is a zombie. I'm wondering how it can be saved.

 

Talked to a recruiter/headhunter type this weekend - she said I should change all my "newspaper" references in my resume to news organization or journalism because "newspaper" may as well read "blacksmith" or wheelright.

 

That's embarrassing.

 

I've just been told the Telegram is looking for an editor but "not advertising it."

Then exactly how are they going to get any applicants?

 

This is interesting not because I believe in the current state of journalism, but most every newspaper in America is stressing the Website and Web-first and all that. The "newspaper" part of it is just for the upper suits to play with as they slowly (way too slowly) kill the print product. Of course on your resume you have to think of a different way to describe the newspaper you work for. Again, the newspaper has been devalued at almost every shop in the country a long time now. It's the internet site that you really work for, not some decayed newspaper.