The Day The Newspapers Shut Down Their Sites

That actually works for a handful of newspapers. Why aren't others adopting it?

 

You know those sci-fi fantasies in which the machines man creates destroys man? That is kinda what is happening with the Internet. It's destroying newspapers, it's destroying the music industry and magazine industry, and it tried to destroy the retail industry, but the experience of going into an actual store still seems to be valued. All because we think we have a birthright to the work of others because we can't get past the 1998 mind-set of flying toasters, bad fonts and clicking to go anywhere for free.

Two thoughts: Perhaps we should shut down newspapers and restock our news-gathering operation with the savings we'd get from not printing and circulating the paper, and take the chance that when consumers realize there's no other place to get Post-Dispatch or Plain-Dealer content, they will pay a nominal fee to get it and advertisers will pony up. And find a way to negate AdBlock.

Or perhaps we figure out why actually going to a store still holds appeal and figure out if that can be replicated in papers. Maybe stress that scrapbooks are safer than leaving memories on a computer that can be zapped by viruses or can be made incompatible with a new system.

All I know is, there is no Watergate-type investigations from a national scale on down without MSM to fund them. Bloggers are nice as link aggregators and commentators, but a lousy hook on which to hang the hat of objective, thorough news-gathering.

 

Because they buy into adolescent fantasies that if we had a few more slideshows and podcasts, advertisers would pony up for web ads.

 

We're a weekly so it's a bit of a different situation. That being said, we use our web site to allow us to remain relevant and competitive against the dailies in our area. To an extent, that allows us to follow the model of we're a daily paper online with a once-a-week print edition that provides more in-depth coverage. We do place obits online, but the other "refrigerator journalism" items we leave in the dead-tree product. After all, as a community newspaper, that's our bread-and-butter. Personally, I have no problem with having a web site. I wouldn't be up for shutting it off because we do draw a good number of daily visitors and do actually produce ad revenue off of it. In addition, as a weekly, if I shut off or shutdown my web site, readers would just move on back to those nearby dailies.

 

Those of us who actually read newspapers can see how much they serve as the assignment editors for the local TV and radio stations, even in the bigger markets. Sometimes the broadcast outlets are even a day or two late with it, but they depend on their audience being non-readers who won't notice. But we notice. The notion that a TV Web site is going to step in and fill the void is ridiculous -- newspapers are their daily tip sheet. That's not a comment on their competence, they just don't have the bodies that even a heavily chopped newspaper newsroom has. And it's not in their business plan to change that -- the trend is the opposite, especially in midsize TV markets. Even in big markets, did you see earlier this month that the CLTV and WGN newsrooms in Chicago are being merged, with cuts likely? TV is not exactly champing at the bit to cash in on newspapers cutting staff. There are many reasons for fear now, but the farfetched idea that someone else is going to provide comparable content is not one of them.

 

Actually, that IS a comment on their competence. Most TV people are brain-dead morons.

There is no fucking way on God's green earth that any TV station can have a hope in hell of covering any community the way a newspaper was. The primary reason being the average local TV reporter has the IQ of a grapefruit and the writing ability of a three-year-old.

Present company excluded of course.

 

Lugnuts just threw a monitor through a wall and doesn't know why.

 

She would be part of the present company.

 

Indeed.


Wait, is she at your house or something?

 

No comment.

 

Oh, as if you'd be here if she were there.

 

"They can get the info elsewhere" continues to be the biggest load of bullshit I've heard throughout this industry's slow death.

Of the byline stories in my paper, you couldn't get 95 percent of that info anywhere else, and that's probably a low-ball estimate. Wire copy? Sure. But not the stuff we cover.

As a Wisconsin native, I read the Wisconsin sports sections ... wait for it ... online, and of the stories I read in those papers, literally the only other place I could get that coverage is ... wait for it again ... the state's other fucking newspapers!
TV? Are you kidding me? TV news/sports is there for the convenience, not for the coverage. You really think Packers fans are satisfied with a 30-second highlight and 30 more of interviews?

CNN does not do as good a job as your newspaper does.
ESPN does not do as good a job as your newspaper does.
Even local TV and its (I'm laughing as I type this) 'web site' does not do as good a job as your newspaper does.

You know what? It's not even that those entities don't do as good a job as your newspaper does. It's that they do a different job than your newspaper does. And there is plenty of reader need/interest for both.

Shutting down the web sites is probably a stupid idea, even for just a couple weeks.
But the stupidest move in worldwide business history was newspapers giving away their content for free.

The stuff that was printed in your paper should have to be paid for. Then you can sprinkle in free stuff like breaking news, blogs and/or videos that correspond with a printed story ... stuff like that.
If we had charged for our web sites from the beginning, we'd be in a little better shape right now, maybe even a lot better.