The wolf at Freedom's door?

"We realize that this might be a financial hardship for some of you."

Why even bother to put that in there?

 

Seriously, it's not like there would be any consideration of the financial hardship. They'll still make the cuts.

 

So, what do y'all think about this? A sign of encouragement or more management-speak bullshit from the publisher?

Q. The newspaper industry has been bleeding financially. Some newspapers closed. Others are in bankruptcy. How is the Register doing?
Horne: The Register was profitable in 2008 and is profitable in 2009. In this economic environment, the fact we’ll have double-digit operating margins this year speaks to the strength of the Register’s position and its link to the community. There is zero chance the Register will close its doors. Orange County will have a newspaper. Those people who say newspapers are dead are wrong. What’s happening is newspapers are changing. Those that don’t, will die.
I was visiting the editor of a major California daily that has more circulation than the Register that had to cut costs so deeply it has 140 people in the newsroom, which is 100 people less than the Register. We made the decision that what our readers wanted is to keep content protected.
The good news for us in Orange County at the Register is that people have been changing to the Register. According to (media research company) Scarborough, OCRegister.com frequent users coming to the site each day was up 92% among Orange County adults in January from a year ago. LATimes.com readership among Orange County adults was down 22%. In print, we were virtually flat — down less than 1% — and we drew 21% among Orange County adults.
We’ve made a profit every month this year. If that’s how you measure success, then we’ve been successful this year.


http://ocbiz.freedomblogging.com/2009/07/22/register-publisher-says-things-are-looking-up/13467/

 

That the regular users numbers at OCRegister.com are up that much (92%??) is encouraging.

What that means, or will mean, to the future of the print product, probably is not.

If readers in the area are changing over to the Register from other papers, well, then, it indicates that the paper is doing what it should -- covering its region better than other competing entities, and readers are realizing and acting on it. This, too, is encouraging.

It also is an exact reflection and confirmation of what a lot of people have been saying is the way to succeed right now in a saturated industry: Find your niche, do it and serve it well...and pray someone finds a way to make money off the online product as soon as possible.

This is all assuming that the numbers are not, as SoCalDude fears, mere publisher-speak and spin.

 

There was a huge feature on the front page of yesterday's Register -- not the sports front, the front of the whole paper -- that was written by a reader telling the story of how she and her son took road trips to the All-Star Game every year and now she is sad because he's about to go to college and the annual mother-son baseball bonding trips are about to come to an end.

This was the editor's note:

"TRUE LIFE? Got a story to tell? We don't pay, but we often publish. If your story is well-written and true send it to Andre Mouchard at amouchard@ocregister.com. Put the words "True Life" in the subject field and keep it to 1,200 words or less. And watch the cussing. Thanks."

Our readers write A-1 stories for us! For free!

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/jake-game-year-2506780-star-hotel

 

This ought to be fun.

Just wait until a reader submits a story that isn't quite true, then send all the complaints to the reader.

 

Times like these I wish I was Hunter S Thompson.

 

that shit sounds insane!

 

If they could outsource those "local" stories to India, they'd probably do that too.

 

Normally, I'd say this is un-fucking-believable, but nothing in this biz is un-fucking-believeable anymore.

 

It's a print-newspaper combination of blogging and reality TV.

With the recent rise of both those things, this evolution was bound to happen, particularly given the emphasis on and the need for low-cost content and overall operations within the industry these days.

 

I say bloggers could double as CEOs.