Gannett papers using AI for high school football

[Inky_Wretch]

Man, that really sucks, and especially for a market of that size.
Are the locals making any noise about that, or do they not care anymore, or what?

Well, that's just it. There's no way to make any noise that will reach anybody.

I posted something on my FB about the two month lack of coverage and I had two people message me saying they've been trying to reach somebody to cancel their subscriptions for several months. Nobody bothered to reroute the incoming calls to a a Gannett hub. You can't get through if you want to subscribe, place an ad, let them know a spaceship landed in the middle of town or anything else.

 

[dixiehack]

Well, that's just it. There's no way to make any noise that will reach anybody.

I posted something on my FB about the two month lack of coverage and I had two people message me saying they've been trying to reach somebody to cancel their subscriptions for several months. Nobody bothered to reroute the incoming calls to a a Gannett hub. You can't get through if you want to subscribe, place an ad, let them know a spaceship landed in the middle of town or anything else.

That's worth bringing up to the local DA's office. A newspaper has no more right to run a consumer fraud scheme than anyone else.

 

[LanceyHoward]

How many are left in that newsroom? Because the SWTR is at zero right now (not counting the Razorbacks beat writer who lives an hour north in Fayetteville).

The Fort Smith Paper is still offering subscription s for $1 the first month and $30 a month after that for combined print/electronic editions.

The only rational reason to subscribe if you are a diehard who must read the paper in print. I suspect that many of the Fort Smith subscribers suffer from dementia and only receive the paper out of habit (my mother and father subscribed to the Denver Post until the day they died, literally.) I would have to think that anyone else would subscribe to the Little Rock paper. It would also cover the hell out of the Razorbacks and would have a lot of copy about the state government.

Which leads to a question I have. Gannett as a whole loses money. I don't think Fort Smith is making money. Fort Smith is also an orphan. There are no other Gannett properties in Arkansas. I keep expecting Gannett to sell there subscriber list to the Little Rock paper and close the property.

The marginal cost of an additional electronic subscriber is essentially zero so any subscribers Little Rock retains drops to the bottom line. That subscriber list is worth more to Little Rock than Fort Smith.

Yet this is not happening in Arkansas or other states. I guess the reason is that the big state wide papers figure the small apers are going to die anyway and they will just wait for their death.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Well, if they've got 5,000 subs at $360 per year that's $1.8 million which should cover the UA beat writer salary, the cost of paying the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to print the paper and have some left over.

Last I heard, they had 15k subs but that was several years ago.

 

[Twirling Time]

Well, that's just it. There's no way to make any noise that will reach anybody.

I posted something on my FB about the two month lack of coverage and I had two people message me saying they've been trying to reach somebody to cancel their subscriptions for several months. Nobody bothered to reroute the incoming calls to a a Gannett hub. You can't get through if you want to subscribe, place an ad, let them know a spaceship landed in the middle of town or anything else.

That's the Gannett way.

 

[SportsGuyBCK]

Well, if they've got 5,000 subs at $360 per year that's $1.8 million which should cover the UA beat writer salary, the cost of paying the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to print the paper and have some left over.

Last I heard, they had 15k subs but that was several years ago.

Gotta pay all of the corporate executives' bonuses (y'know, because they work SO hard) before worrying about little things like paying the people who ACTUALLY work ...

 

[matt_garth]

 

[SixToe]

Are those AI-generated faces? That's weird as hell to have "12 years experience" as a writer and zero search results.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Shutterstock has a nation's worth of anonymous faces.

 

[goalmouth]

It's just payola for the digital age.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

I can't believe AI would replace reporters. Next thing you know, it's going to replace SJ posters.

 

[DanOregon]

I don't know if AI is to blame, but I saw a copy of the Register-Guard at a 7-11, might have been the Sunday paper. The main A-1 headline above the fold was "Places to see fall color in the Willamette Valley." Honestly. Back in the day, that might be lead art on a "Life" section on a slow day when nothing else was popping.