What should we do? Very serious question..

Boy, that would be a shame.

 

Widdle?

 

It's actually a good way to describe cutting designers.

Designers: All they do is diddle
It's time to widdle

I like that!

 

There. It's fixed. Whittle. I'm a dumbass.

And DP, let's not turn this into a designer bashing thread.

 

It's not, but at some point, don't you think there needs to be some analysis of the flaws in the process?

Because if everyone is going to look at changes but then say: "Well, we have to keep our same approaches, including putting Picassos For A Day above everything else," then there will be only one outcome:

RIP Newspapers. Nice knowing you.

 

I dunno. I think having an athlete's ear where his mouth should be would draw readers.

 

All I can tell you -- from recent experience -- is be prepared. You don't know when it's going to happen to you. And here I am, after 15 years of sports writing, with little marketable skill. Take some courses. Learn how to do something else.

 

Anyone want to find the thread on this topic from 2003? Because we've had this discussion before. I can't believe someone hasn't jumped in with, "BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE THE CPU TO THE TOILET!!"

But you can take a treo, which has the internet.

Anyway ... sorry charlie, but nobody is paying for any paper online. Not happening. I gave the NYT experiment two years. Let's see what happens. As someone else said, registration is a big enough hurdle for many people to just go elsewhere.

National news? Free on CNN, yahoo, etc. It's only a matter of time before Yahoo begins hiring political columnists (if they don't already - forgive me, i only use yahoo for box scores and fantasy sports).

The bottom line is that people NEED to start getting skilled at using the internet. Learn web skills. That's where the future is. And cracking into magazines isn't a bad idea, either.

 

The last part of that is your best argument. Newspapers simply have not adapted to going local, local, local.

A big part of that is the obsession with Picassos For A Day. You can't change your coverage approach drastically when you are always throwing the visual hurdles in the way.

Newspapers should have been throwing writing and editing resources into the Internet, video, audio and print long before this. Instead, they tried to build a better-looking horse and buggy.

The approach has failed. The people who are the real dinosaurs in this game are the people who constantly blather they are on the cutting edge. You'll find their names at the "visual journalism" sites.

 

DyePack is right. All I ever hear around here anymore is "rip that damn Pulitzer-worthy story out of the paper and get me some cute bunny photos. Pronto!"

It's getting a bit depressing.

 

That's right, Aceosaurus.

Except you have the sequence out of whack. The Pulitzer story would never even exist because that writer already would have been bought out or laid off.

The bunny photos would already be in place, in a cutout, with a giant numeral above them.

The page would be posted on npd.com, and five design dolts already would have commented on how fabulous it, and they, are.

 

I still believe that if you write stuff worth reading, people will want to read it -- no matter the medium.*

Edited to correct a typo included in quotes below, which perhaps proves once and for all that I'm a total idiot, and that writing is, in fact, deader than a doornail, at least in my living room.