95 replies to this topic

[Jacques Cadé]

I read the T-C for columnists: Knox is great, Leyne is good and Ian Hunter provides a dish of curmudgeon with my coffee.
Other than big takeouts like the native housing stories the rest is pablum.

I tend to agree. Other essentials for me are the letters page, Raeside, and local arts reviews.

But that's the catch: that's "for me". For others, it's the recipes, the crossword puzzle, the local sports. I wouldn't care if they were gone, but others would. If there was a paper that was just for me, I might be the only one reading it. Pretty tough to finance good local columnists that way.

[Ms. B. Havin]

Interesting that you guys have started talking about what you read the paper for...

Not sure about anyone else on the forum, but I've been sulking about not being in Austin, TX at SXSW. Yesterday, they had a session called New Think for Publishers, which So Misguided (Monique) blogged about as No Think for Old Publishers. The session was about book publishing (not newspapers), but here's So Misguided's takeaway:

Monique’s summary
What went wrong is this:
* Publishers have not listened to the crowd for a long time.
* The crowd is restless.
* Publishers wring their hands about the web.
* The crowd offers options publishers don’t like.
* Publishers weep into their hands.
* The crowd wants to help and offers other suggestions.
* Publishers act like deer in headlights.
* The crowd plows down publishers and reinvents the industry without them.

What this panel really came down to is that the wisdom of the crowds is not being tapped. The crowd is now sick and tired of trying to help people who won’t help themselves.

Hold me to this: I’m going to organize a panel in Vancouver. We’re going to create a model for publishing and marketing books. We’re going to move forward as an industry. Leaders will be identified. Roles will be assigned. If you’re not open to totally change everything you’re doing, then you are not ready for this revolution. Don’t come.

Another book blogger who attended the session added this: Know where readers are and what they are saying.

That probably applies to newspaper publishing, too, and not just book publishing ("know where readers are"/why they're reading). At least your comments suggest so.

Now...

The panel I'm most aggrieved about missing is Stephen B. Johnson's, The Ecosystem of News.

Luckily, though, he blogged his entire talk, Old Growth Media And The Future Of News. It's long, but promises to be a most rewarding read...

[Koru]

Well it is now official! Today was the last day of a regular print edition of the Seattle P-I. There is an article in Times Colonist business section outlining the the new online only edition starting tomorrow. Also comments from the Times in Seattle that if the PI hadn't gone, they probably would, outlining how w/the PI abolishing the newsprint edition they now have a shot at survival. I wonder who is next? The Seattle PI is by far the biggest newspaper in North America to switch formats completely

[Jacques Cadé]

Another dimension to all this that hasn't been discussed is the fact that daily newspapers are unionized operations, with salaries and benefits to match. Facing collapse, the auto industry is demanding concessions from its unions, including wage rollbacks and pension freezes. Will the newspaper industry try to do the same?

An article that does touch upon the subject is this one, about the construction of a non-union press in San Francisco, and the threat to close down the daily Chronicle: http://www.cjr.org/b..._two_papers.php

Unions are valuable to those who happen to be members. But I suspect the public – which is quickly learning how to produce its own news media on shoestring budgets – will have little sympathy for guilded journalists losing their jobs. Ordinary citizens can't build their own cars (yet), but they sure can generate their own news.

[Rob Randall]

My stepdad spent his entire career with the TC, almost all of it doing one job--supervising the insertion of flyers into the bundles. When he wanted early retirement, the union refused, knowing the position would be lost forever. He eventually got his wish.

I hate to think of losing the Sunday comics. You can read them online but it is a chore.

[Ms. B. Havin]

Interesting read, useful info (for reporters?): Life After Newspapers: One Reporter Takes on the Island of Alameda, interview with Michele Ellson by Ryan Sholin.

The last point speaks volumes about the changed relationship between newspapers/ reporters and their readers/ audiences:

5. What's the one piece of advice you would give an out-of-work journalist with thoughts about covering their own neighborhood online?

Be ready to work. Hard.

I've found covering local news to be a lot more challenging than I expected, and in some respects a little more challenging than covering an issue beat.

For one, you have to be able to speak intelligently on everything from education policy to municipal finance to, in my case, environmental cleanup issues. And people are so invested in these local issues they aren't shy about letting you know when they think you've messed up -- in the most personal and derogatory terms possible, I might add.

That's another thing that I think was a shock for me in moving from print to online - the shift in what your readers want and expect from you in terms of their psychic needs (which shift from information to attention-getting, sometimes) and the kind of engagement they anticipate. I figure it'll take a lot of work for me to fine-tune that engagement level.

I think that really nails it. It seems many reporters are somehow thin-skinned and get touchy about not being "respected." But as Ellson points out, "the kind of engagement they [audiences] anticipate" is vastly different than what traditional reporters, used to sitting in a power seat from which to broadcast, have had to deal with.

Audiences/ readers are talking back.

[mat]

Interesting read, useful info (for reporters?): Life After Newspapers: One Reporter Takes on the Island of Alameda, interview with Michele Ellson by Ryan Sholin.

The last point speaks volumes about the changed relationship between newspapers/ reporters and their readers/ audiences:

5. What's the one piece of advice you would give an out-of-work journalist with thoughts about covering their own neighborhood online?

Be ready to work. Hard.

I've found covering local news to be a lot more challenging than I expected, and in some respects a little more challenging than covering an issue beat.

For one, you have to be able to speak intelligently on everything from education policy to municipal finance to, in my case, environmental cleanup issues. And people are so invested in these local issues they aren't shy about letting you know when they think you've messed up -- in the most personal and derogatory terms possible, I might add.

That's another thing that I think was a shock for me in moving from print to online - the shift in what your readers want and expect from you in terms of their psychic needs (which shift from information to attention-getting, sometimes) and the kind of engagement they anticipate. I figure it'll take a lot of work for me to fine-tune that engagement level.

I think that really nails it. It seems many reporters are somehow thin-skinned and get touchy about not being "respected." But as Ellson points out, "the kind of engagement they [audiences] anticipate" is vastly different than what traditional reporters, used to sitting in a power seat from which to broadcast, have had to deal with.

Audiences/ readers are talking back.

It's a very good point. Over the last few years as media outlets (note CBC online, Globe and Mail, and Black Press with it's 'local comment sections') - all have required the journalists to not only investigate and produce an article (in various formats), but to respond to viewer comments, in some cases putting a journo's email address with the byline.

I like the way the Guardian UK does it - reports go up and there is a general public response email link, but for reader response/published comments and response, they put popular and editorial selections in the 'blog' section weekly in the Observer.

A 'traditional' journalist' pre 2002 (?) would have little problem in dealing with direct viewer response as that was mostly letters to the editor (that's a thing of the past), or phone calls in the days following a print. Today people see an online article and will respond directly - and the other direction, reports in main stream media coming from the public, hence CNN Ireport and the usual 'send us your news' links on ALL online media outlets.

There is a plethora of lament for traditional methods, ethics and standards in this media paradigm shift - you can't have it both ways. Asking for public input, then complaining about overwork.

[Holden West]

While the dead tree version of the news has an environmental impact, computer use doesn't get off easy:

Another way of viewing the demand is that the world's data centres consumed about the same amount of electricity as about 10 million typical Canadian homes.
The total cost of electricity needed to run the world's growing server fleet has been projected to rise by a compounded rate of about 11 per cent a year from 2005 to 2010, according to IDC, a Massachusetts-based firm that tracks Internet trends. It said the electricity bill to power and cool the world's servers should reach a stupendous $44.5-billion (U.S.) next year.

[VicHockeyFan]

Chicago Sun-Times files for bankruptcy...

http://money.cnn.com...05_FORTUNE5.htm

[mat]

Chicago Sun-Times files for bankruptcy...

http://money.cnn.com...05_FORTUNE5.htm

If correct, the same company owns the LA Times and many others - a Canwest of the USA (in more ways than one).

[Holden West]

^It's because Conrad Black ran the Sun Times so well they now owe the IRS half a billion dollars.

[yodsaker]

Interesting article in this link to slate.com
The writer contends the 'net is not the real cause of dailies' troubles...

http://www.slate.com/?id=2215154

[Jacques Cadé]

Another one for the contrarians, from Slate: Web 2.0 is even less profitable than newspapers. See http://www.slate.com...62/pagenum/all/

Excerpt: "There's a simple reason for this: Advertisers don't like paying very much to support homemade photos and videos. As a result, the economics of user-generated sites are even more crushing than those of the newspaper business. At least newspapers see a proportional relationship between circulation and revenues—when the paper publishes great stories, it attracts more readers, and, in time, more advertisers. At YouTube, the relationship can be backward: The videos that get the most clicks—and are thus most expensive for YouTube to carry—trend toward the sort of lewd or random flavor that doesn't sit well with advertisers."

[G-Man]

So then isn't it the advertisers that will have to change?

[collywobbles]

Nope. Readers are going to have to come around to the fact that if they want to see professionally-produced journalism on the web, they're going to have to pay for it. That may wind up taking the form of subscriptions, maybe per-article micropayments, maybe voluntary donations (as with the Seattle Post Globe, the Tyees's fundraising drive, or for that matter NPR and public TV in the States) -- at this point nobody knows what, or how, people might be willing to pay.

But from everything we've seen so to date, it's pretty well apparent that the kind of advertising revenue available to be made on the web is just not likely to ever be enough to sustain even a lean n' mean news operation without other sources of revenue.

[G-Man]

^ I doubt that. Many newspapers tried to keep content to subscription services and the truth is that people just go elsewhere to get their news.

IMO that is the great thing about the internet it is self policing when it comes to trying make people pay for content.

Advertisers are going to want us to continue to pay attention to their ads whether they be local or international, especially after newspapers are no longer available in paper formats.

[Holden West]

There was something interesting in that Slate article (or one linked to it, I can't remember). It was that people are used to content in a web browser being free and they can't get past that. However, outside the browser environment (for example, iTunes or newsreader services) people give up a degree of control and are willing to pay for service.

After all, we don't even blink an eye when we spend hundreds of dollars on applications and operating systems for our computers.

[VicHockeyFan]

I's pay to have the information just somehow planted in my brain, without the hassle of having to read it, or watch TV to get the info etc.

[aastra]

I thought that's what TV was for?

[collywobbles]

^ I doubt that. Many newspapers tried to keep content to subscription services and the truth is that people just go elsewhere to get their news.

True, when the same information can be had from free sources, it's a tough sell to convince someone to pay for it. It would be unlikely anyone could make a go of trying to sell access to a local news site covering council, cops, etc. so long as CanWest keeps giving the same stuff away for free through the TC's site.

But things may be different if the TC's website disappears (along with the paper) or CanWest (or some new owner if it's to be sold) opts to move it to a pay-to-access model.

The other thing worth noting is that for specialized markets, pay-to-access seems to proving viable in some cases. The WSJ is one example of a paper that's protected its content behind a paywall since day one and seems to be doing OK by it.

Another that's worth looking at is allnovascotia.com (see this Financial Post story about it: http://www.financial...?id=1192481&p=1). Instead of trying to be an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink news source, they focused down on being the go-to source for business info. With 3,000 subscribers paying $30 a month, they're bringing in $1 million in revenue annually. So by not swinging for mass-market appeal, they've found a model which appears (stress appears) like it may be sustainable.