So, I'm curious ...

Adding to my previous post, a point regarding technology.

A website should utilized for immediacy. A printed or online (PDF) version of the product should be utilized for features and in-depth writing.

And if you are going to make people pay for access to the website, make sure it's at a much lower cost than the printed and online versions. That way, you satisfy those who are either content with what holds immediacy or want to sample what you have before they commit to a costlier subscription. (Allowing people to view a certain number of web stories per month is fine.)

But with that said, your features and in-depth writing don't go on the website. They are kept to the print and online version. And those who subscribe to those versions get the website access for free.

And the website absolutely needs to focus on local advertisers... and the website needs to look unique, not just some canned template that has a color scheme change.

That's how I envision it, anyway.

 

Yeah. People love .pdf articles on the web.

How much better would this have been as a .pdf?

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek

 

Great point here.

Of course, it's way easier (read: CHEAPER) for smaller dailies to pay an outfit like Town News to provide the web site template and manage the content for them.

You get what you pay for.

 

The only people who loved #Snowfall! were the Pulitzer committee and graphic design fetishists. The story was boring as shit. I've never once heard anyone praise the actual writing or storytelling.

 

That's fine. It's a presentation people are familiar with.

It's still better than a .pdf. Anything would be better than a .pdf.

 

I would agree there.

I just contend the Times big "victory!" in "snow falling" is mostly in the minds of a tiny journalism elite and not actual readers.

 

I'd like to see a mountain of comments by readers deriding Snow Fall for the story.

 

Since earning my degree in 2009, I had a few bumps leading to where I am now.

I began working at a small weekly newspaper where I was a one-man sports department covering three high schools in the county. At the time, I was single and made the effort to cover as many teams as possible and making a mix of gamers, features and some that combined both. I took photos and laid out my pages while also writing one or two columns a week. This was for a $22,000 salary and asked for and granted a $2,000 raise after 10 months. Guess writing 12-15 articles with photos is hard to argue against.

After two years there, I took a job at another small weekly to do sports and news. It was closer to my fiance and her son for about the same pay. About four months in, I was in a nasty car accident where my head hit the steering wheel (rear-ended while stopped and the car was going 55 mph on impact). Didn't realize at the time it affected my brain and made it difficult to handle several beats at one time. I had headaches every day at the office. I saw a doctor who said it was post-concussion syndrome and I need to go to L&I. Two hours after calling it in, I was fired.

Spent nearly a year working part-time at a hardware store. Thankfully, I received a job offer the day after my daughter was born on Valentine's Day. It is a military installation newspaper, but my check comes from the newspaper that contracts us to the Public Affairs. Since then, I have established myself as a writer, photographer and page designer with no short-term concerns about job security since the paper and the base signed a 6-year contract shortly before I was hired.

The reason I wrote all of this is to put in perspective that there is always some form of light past all of the darkness. Sure, I am still a pup and many of you might dismiss my opinion. Especially since I am more of an optimist who thinks there will always be a need for localized journalism. The format might change, but the need for writers will not.

 

I've been out for exactly two years. I have no delusion that I'll ever do it again full time or part time. Every February/March, May, and November I get a little freelance work from other papers that need high school state tournaments covered. There aren't any openings where I'm at, and my wife isn't giving up a $50K-plus job so I can play reporter for $20K. I'll have to take whatever I can get, but at this point the market just doesn't want me. I'm the long-term unemployed. Besides, with the negative public opinion of reporters being right there with used car salesmen and lawyers, I can't get anyone to take me seriously in the few interviews I've had. Fine. I'll bank on one more shot at disability for my spinal injury. If I get it, I'm not going to worry about this shit anymore.

 

It's not fun here. The only way to get a raise is to get a new job, so we've lost quite a few good people the last few years, and we've gone from a newsroom that was so full and busy five years ago we had one reporter and one copy editor without their own desks to a newsroom that has five, about to be six, empty desks.

We hadn't been hit as hard as the rest of the nation until the last couple years, and a lot of it has to do with scared advertising, and salespeople who just aren't aggressive enough trying to sell.

Yes, technology means times are changing but I still think there's hope. I too believe in the focus local model, and I believe there's more outside the box thinking that needs to be done.
For one, just like the way TownHall and some of these other companies are getting all the website contracts, the same could be done printing-wise. If there are enough papers (daily, weekly, college), within a certain mile radius, it would be beneficial for a company to build a state of the art printing facility and contract the papers. for the jobs.
Just eliminating the press guys here would save us at least $200,000 in salaries. Add in ink costs, and paper costs, and you are looking at a substantial cost. If you could outsource that for 3/4 to 1/2 the cost, why wouldn't you?

Still, I'm kind of mad at myself I didn't get out when there was time, and the writing was on the wall that the industry was going down quick.
Oh well.

 

Metrics. It's all about metrics now.

Even when readers keep bailing.
Even when the layoffs keep coming.

"The metrics say this is important."
I hear that at least twice a day.
But the metrics come from the bean-counters.