Odd news about newspapers

[Perd Hapley]

The Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and other papers may be dropping AP articles and photos.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/16/business/chicago-tribune-ap-oct16

Does this mean that more reporters will begin writing and thinking for themselves, or does it just mean the papers are withering and will publish less content?


In St. Louis, the Globe Democrat is coming back, in online form.  It was St. Louis's conservative paper for a long, long time, until it folded in the eighties. 
http://www.globe-democrat.com/index.html

[Fly320s]

The article is a year old. I'd bet that it is just a tactic used to get lower AP subscriber prices since the papers are losing money.

[Perd Hapley]

That's funny.  A local talk show host was talking about it for some reason. 

But anyway, a conservative newspaper is apparently making a come-back.  Of sorts.  I think that's pretty interesting. 

Somebody tried to compete with the Pravda-Disgrace several years ago.  They folded very quickly.  We'll see how this new Globe Democrat goes. 

[Hawkmoon]

Does this mean that more reporters will begin writing and thinking for themselves, or does it just mean the papers are withering and will publish less content?ww.globe-democrat.com/index.html

From the article:

The change comes as some newspapers are determining shared wire content that is available to readers from many other outlets is less valuable to them than unique, proprietary content, especially online. Coupled with reductions in the space they allocate in print for news, papers are weighing whether there’s the same need for Associated Press content as in the past–even as the newsroom staffs that produce their unique content shrink.

Newspapers are withering on the vine. What passes for local "journalism" is basically just reprinting press releases from town meetings and police blotters, and regurgitating whatever manages to find its way to the editor's desk -- usually with no attempt at fact checking or even spell checking. The percentage of page space taken up by advertising is increasing while news content is disappearing ... and then they wonder why people don't buy newspapers.

[drewtam]

Why pay for poorly written and researched national and local news, when I get equivalent or better quality on line for free.

[CNYCacher]

The percentage of page space taken up by advertising is increasing while news content is disappearing

I work for a newspaper.  People would have to actually be buying advertising for this to be true.

[seeker_two]

The Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and other papers may be dropping AP articles and photos.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/16/business/chicago-tribune-ap-oct16

Makes sense....those papers quit reporting news a long time ago....so why should they pay for news?.... 

[Hawkmoon]

I work for a newspaper.  People would have to actually be buying advertising for this to be true.

Somebody is buying it around here. Oh, I freely acknowledge that there's less advertising than ten years ago, even five years ago. But overall, there has been a bigger reduction in content over the same period than in advertising. Yet all the newspapers serving my area have increased their price by 50 percent, for 50 cents to 75 cents. So it's small wonder they aren't selling newspapers. They stopped reporting real news years ago, they don't bother to even correct egregious grammatical erros in their copy, the size of the paper has continued to shrink while the price went up ... why would ANYONE buy one of these rags?

[seeker_two]

... why would ANYONE buy one of these rags?

Because people still own birds and wrap fish......

[CNYCacher]

they don't bother to even correct egregious grammatical erros in their copy,

I run the website for the newspaper I work for.  I could care less about the paper proper, but not much less.  Don't think I am getting all defensive about it, because everything you've said is true.

In fact, we just raised the price of our daily from $0.50 to $0.75, mostly to stem the hemorrhaging that was going on in the circulation department.

[Gowen]

Our Reno newspaper is so bad, I swear they out source the writing to India.  Misspelled words, bad grammar and outright Engrish.  We really don't have an alternative, so you have to filter out all the bull pucky when you read it.  I won't pay for it, my wife will check it out online, but that's it.  I would be overjoyed to see it go out of business.  All through GWB's term they always showed the worst picture they could find.  I'm surprised that they show obama with a halo around his head.

[Hawkmoon]

In fact, we just raised the price of our daily from $0.50 to $0.75, mostly to stem the hemorrhaging that was going on in the circulation department.

Won't help.

There are newspaper machines for three daily papers outside my post office. When the price was 50 centavos, all three machines were empty by noon. When one raised the price to 75 cents, the other two sold out faster and the third still had half its allotment by closing time. Then #2 went up to 75 cents, and it, too, had papers left by the end of the day.

Now #3 has jumped to 75 cents. That happens to be the one I used to buy. I still buy one occasionally, but not nearly as often as before. And before, if I didn't get there by 10:00 or 10:30, the machine was empty. Now, it's quite normal to find papers in it at 4:00 p.m.

The newspapers are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, but it's a fairly fundamental rule of marketing that you can't increase the price while reducing the quality AND quantity of the product and expect revenues and profits to increase. Not gonna happen.

[Perd Hapley]

Given the concern so many journalists feign for the environment, you'd think they would lobby for the whole business to be moved online. 

[Monkeyleg]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel often continues to send papers to subscribers who cancel. I'm sure this is to keep their circulation numbers up. They've also been sued many times for falsifying their circulation numbers.

On Mondays the main (US and world) section and the local section are combined, with about 14-16 pages total. The sports section is usually about that size.

I really believe they'd have better numbers if their bias wasn't so strong.

[RocketMan]

Hawkmoon speaks the truth.  How can a business reduce the value and quality of its product and expect a prospective customer to pay more for it?
I wonder if there is a relationship between newpapers failing and their ownership by left-leaning types?  It might be worth a Google.

[Perd Hapley]

I wonder if there is a relationship between newpapers failing and their ownership by left-leaning types?  It might be worth a Google.

I don't know who owns 'em, but Fox News may provide a clue as to the correlation between bias and market share.