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What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

politico.com

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Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#31

Post by mathw »

panglott wrote: post #8

"Online editions offer a 'less-than-satisfactory' reading experience, she writes, cluttered with intrusive ads and hampered by poor design." Our local newspaper's Web site is terrible. It's not just lack of investment; they rolled out a new HTML5 Web site that demonstrates to me that bad HTML5 is the worst-yet flavor of bad HTML. But this doesn't mean that the strategic error was digital news; it means the strategic…

In that the author is entirely correct. There's some kind of publishing platform used by a number of local papers in the UK (including mine, and that of the nearest other city) and it's absolutely terrible. Pages jitter around as various bits load, adverts push the content around, performance on Chrome for Android is absolutely awful (and this is hardly a niche platform) etc. etc. Even discovering stories you want to read is nigh on impossible due to limited or just utterly incomprehensible categorisation and browsing facilities.

You can't just put content on the web, you need to put content on a website which is usable, fast and easy to read and browse.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#32

Post by eumoria »

jacquesm wrote: post #24
tdb7893 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested to know that Buzzfeed seems to be doing investigative reporting now

I just checked out their homepage, let's just say that isn't exactly evident from the content there. I'm going to assume your comment was sarcastic unless there is some proof to the contrary. Some samples: Oh, boy. 34 of the best products from shark tank. 23 texts that will make you laugh way harder than they should. How much do you actually know about drugs? Find awesome gifts for friends and family. 27 Ingenious Ha…

Pooping hacks you say?

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#33

Post by formula1 »

Theres enough sources here to warrent a deeper look into the subject but here are my first thoughts

1) online is more convienient than paper. If paper is on a daily route, its convienient.

2) online is often cheaper than paper. There is probably some uncanny valley but paper distribution costs much more than electronic. And paper production is at best analogous to server scalability.

3) online has more tools available in regards to presentation and linking to bibliography/other stories.

4) online has more advertisement opportunity

What paper really represents is brand pressence. Would you trust a no name blog or a locally distributed paper + an online pressence

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#34

Post by EGreg »

Basically, just like booksellers and other vendors, the move to online caused Newspapers to compete in a global marketplace, where the unit is the story. And the more outlets, the bigger the competition.

This is the result of all that. They are now all chasing a fixed advertising pie, but the barrier to publishing has been greatly lowered

I suppose the same could be said of the printing press getting more available with time. But it was hard to obtain the mass distribution network that the internet gives nearly for free.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#35

Post by EGreg »

goatlover wrote: post #16
nkozyra wrote: post #10

The conclusion that a drop in readership is proof that moving to the web was a mistake is extraordinarily shallow. "Readers continue to leave print newspapers, but they’re not migrating to the online editions." Because they have more options. Print products were often monopolies, especially in the early to mid 90s, a hey day for newspapers. There was often a single publication per DMA. What happened then is newspaper…

Sacrificing the ideals of journalism sounds like a bad deal for democracy. But then again, if people would rather be entertained by whatever is in their filter bubble for five minutes, than be challenged, I guess that's the kind of news world we get.

This may not be the news world we need

But this is the news world we deserve :)

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#37

Post by losteverything »

In many ways the "newspaper" is its own ecosystem. Editors/reporters, printers/delivery, academia,pollsters, others rely on this ecosystem to earn and prosper.

Except readers.

This ecosystem is morphing under their feet. But the large number of humans living off this ecosystem means it just won't go away quickly. Holding on to the fifth estate oversight gives newspaper people strength.

For the sake of all earning a living, I hope mid career changes are not forced on those that entered their ecosystem.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#38

Post by brazzledazzle »

I'm starting to think distraction is the root of many problems. There's little hope for most people trying to read an in-depth article on their mobile devices. The article about deep work on the front page has made me realize just how long it takes me to take care of the stuff that is severely hampered by distraction.

I think a big hurdle will be removing distractions like chat or noise/interruptions from coworkers without creating problems. It would be nice to just sign off/hide away for extended periods but that's bound to go overly poorly in our collaboration enthusiastic world.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#39

Post by pjc50 »

lisa_q wrote: post #7
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of crowd-sourcing what gets published/visible, trust some anonymous individuals at a newspaper? Who has only one agenda instead of a mixture of many voices and ideals? That's got its downside too. The bubble is created there by what tiny number of voices are included in the subscription list.

"some anonymous individuals at a newspaper" ...you mean professional journalists who actually report on subjects of their expertise?

The UK press are spectacularly partisan. Brexit is their greatest achievement.

The US press are more subtly handicapped by believing that the midpoint between partisans is "balanced". The Trump campaign is showing how ridiculous this can become.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#40

Post by angry-hacker »

panglott wrote: post #8

"Online editions offer a 'less-than-satisfactory' reading experience, she writes, cluttered with intrusive ads and hampered by poor design." Our local newspaper's Web site is terrible. It's not just lack of investment; they rolled out a new HTML5 Web site that demonstrates to me that bad HTML5 is the worst-yet flavor of bad HTML. But this doesn't mean that the strategic error was digital news; it means the strategic…

So what is bad about it? It sounds strange thing to say htnl5 has anything to do with it...
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