Kentucky basketball game tonight; flame away on me

Wrong, buck. I'm reading everybody's responses and taking in their opinions. In my mind there is a discussion going on. I'm just very passionate because I feel like my opinion has been dismissed by all the powers that be and management fucks who mistakenly decided the internet was the answer and I'm violently pushing my take.

 

It has nothing to do with beating anyone with breaking news (though it's a nice fringe benefit, and a big-time get that makes it to CNN or ESPN is a boost to the reporter and the paper). It's that now we expect information to be on the internet. Most businesses -- news gatherers, department stores, insurance companies, what have you -- are judged on their Web presence. Without one, we send the message to readers that we don't understand how to do business in the 21st century.

Problem is, people can get professional coverage of said event from ESPN, from TV stations, from major sports websites, from the school's website, from myriad other ways. You don't think people would see that, think "they're pretty self-important, thinking that they're the only people in the world to do a good job and that it's worth waiting 8-12 hours to read," then not bother with the site OR the paper?

There's bad management in all walks of life. But if this was simply a way to save newsprint and thus money, they'd be making much larger cutbacks in production or going all-digital in short order, instead of this "let's cut web width by an inch, let's reduce stock by a point, let's run six less pages" death by a thousand cuts method.

If that were the case, nobody would be bothering with the internet because nobody would be making money. Google doesn't charge for anything and they're a megapower. YouTube and Facebook are already iconic -- what obscene number did Facebook sell for this year? -- and they're giving away all content. It can be done. It's that we're not doing it.

How can they look good saving money if they're cutting jobs because they're losing money? Nobody's looking good if they're at a newspaper in 2008. Newspapers have been struggling for a while now, and that was compounded by a shitty economy that killed an assload of traditional advertising lineage. Again, lots of incompetence up top (just like in any business), but it's not as simple as "kill the internet, and everything follows." Nobody wants to lose money.

There'll always be a market for a print product, but don't expect regular newspaper reading to be some sort of rite of passage for people turning 35. I turn 35 in six months, and I don't expect I'll be upping my physical newspaper reading.

Yeah, let's not put the signature on that declaration just yet.

 

Frederick,

It's pretty clear that your problem isn't with the internet. It's with bad management who do not take the time to understand a problem, think about it systemically and create solutions for longterm survival and growth, not short-term profit. The problem with media companies today isn't the internet. It's crappy management. The great management thinker W. Edwards Deming once said that management was the cause of 90% of the problems in business (and by the end of his life, he was believing it was even higher).

Raging against the internet isn't going to help the problem. There is plenty of money to be made from internet advertising. Tens of thousands of people get a pay check that is generated entirely by internet advertising. Just because most newspaper companies have been too lazy or mis-managed to make the investment in resources to discover this revenue doesn't mean that the internet is the down fall of newspapers.

The internet is an easy target because it seems like it offers a simple solution, but attacking the internet is just as short-sighted as the other decisions that newspaper companies managers have made.

 

Not from what I've seen on this thread. Screaming the loudest and dropping the most f-bombs does not equate to persuasive sales acumen.

 

This thread is mildly amusing, but it's also idiotic.

Frederick: Ain't going to happen. And yes, the web can be monetized. My place just announced their sites made a couple of million dollars profit in the third quarter, a first. And that was in a sinking economy.

When we start going back up again, there will be plenty of money to be made on the web.

 

Feedburner doesn't necessarily cost money and since Google swallowed it, some of its "pro" services are free now, too.

 

My 35-and-over self and my 35-and-over friends don't really have any use for the daily dead tree product. And that includes a lot of people who aren't techies or "early adopters."

Take a look at the 50-and up demographic group if you're looking for people who still like traditional newspapers.

 

And I say, no, I clicky click away from your site and read the competition which puts the complete story and analysis on the web. And forget about your paper.

Ranting and raving about something that's been over for, what, 10 years gets you nowhere. The Internet is here. The Internet is staying. The Internet is taking over. Figure out how to adopt to it or die. Going back and doing what worked 15 years ago is not the answer.

 

100 years from now, they will be looking back at the death of the newspaper.

And they will be laying it at the feet of many of today's newspaper executives and anyone else who let it happen.

Shrugging one's shoulders and saying, "that ship has sailed" -- sorry, doesn't work for me. We need to work a little harder to keep newspapers relevant.

 

Yeah, I forgot to mention -- I'm certainly over 35 (reverse the digits) and a career newspaper guy who still loves to get his paper.

BUT, and I say this sheepishly and still not positive -- the next time my subscription comes due again, for the first time I'm not sure if I'm doing to renew.

 

Frederick, your screaming is ridiculous. You are shouting to turn back time and start over. It's pointless.

Right here in 2008, there is no way a newspaper can just stop putting its content on the web. It is what consumers expect.

Besides, I don't think people are cancelling their subscriptions because they want to read the content for free on the web. And I don't think they'd be subscribing if you eliminated the web. Circulation has been going down for decades.

I just had a chat with some friends who work for an MLB team and they said they did some studies on where the fans got their news from, and overwhelmingly they got it from MLB.com. People don't care where it comes from (whether it's a team site or "unibased" reporters). They just want it quickly.

I also think you can make money putting content on the web, but not enough money to pay for printing presses, trucks, delivery people, etc. Maybe if newspapers abandoned the print editions entirely and went to web-only, they'd start making money again.

 

This would be a ballsy move that might hurt in the short term but it would have the potential for long-term payoff. The overhead for producing a print edition is much higher than online overhead.