Newspapers should sell subscriptions to the latest news, and provide slightly old news for free, like 8 to 12 hours behind.
What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
81–90 of 170 posts
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#82Newspapers should sell subscriptions to the latest news, and provide slightly old news for free, like 8 to 12 hours behind.
and sell subscriptions to old news ?
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#83The 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…
My plumber isn't allowed to call himself a plumber unless he follows the rules for plumbing. Same for my accountant, doctor, electrician, and lock pick. I get the "free speech" argument, but I still cannot understand why we don't have rules about who can and cannot call themselves a journalist. Coming up with these rules might be tricky, but shouldn't we try? Or have we and I'm just uninformed?
Fantastic idea. It's a profession, and actually there are rules on who can write for newspapers - it's just that the owners of newspapers piss in the soup so much with their biases that it loses any value. So maybe fewer journalists and fewer newspapers - some form of public service guarantee otherwise you canny t be a newspaper just an entertainment magazine
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#84The only problem with printed news is the vast amount of garbage that it generates: I mean the paper itself. It's not very environmentally friendly.
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Sacrificing the ideals of journalism sounds like a bad deal for democracy We should not romanticize journalism of the past too much either. The "old news" subreddit gives some perspective (obviously, it's biased towards funny or unusual stories) https://www.reddit.com/r/OldNews
I have recorded one year of imagery in a 1970 newspaper (as a start). Speaking from firsthand experience with comparisons from the last few years, media has taken a huge leap backwards and prejudice and nastiness has increased considerably. This is in spite of most people who haven't compared saying the opposite of what I have observed ("oh, you want to go back to how it was 50 years ago when men were all sexist?"). I could write a novel on that fallacious mindset alone!
This may not be what you meant about romanticising, but modern newspapers have deteriorated significantly.
Part of this deterioration is because of competition in journalism (click bait, a race to the bottom). Part of it is a perverse sense of and fundamental abuse of the term Equality. The abuse of the term equality has then lead to unprecedented gender bullying and some extreme revisionist history that largely remains unchallenged. If you pick up a reasonable paper from 1970, you will realise how sexist we have become! The issue today is that you won't find a reasonable (eg. non sexist) newspaper - there is no choice! Sexism and gender bullying ARE the norm.
Newspapers needed to compete with the Internet. In this respect, the article was fundamentally wrong. Failure to embrace the Internet would have allowed others to fill the void (even if you went online but charged money). More people are now used to digesting news electronically and the Internet makes the content dynamic and interactive.
People will pay good money for good news, but it needs to be good quality. That eliminates most of the market.
Think of games. You can still sell the occasional blockbuster (GTA 5 made a billion dollars worth of sales!!). However, most games on iTunes hover below a few $ and many end up free. Compare this to games 30 years ago where there was a small cheap-end market. Or, CDs. Sales have fallen through the floor, but, a 99c track sells well on iTunes. News isn't quite the same, but you can see that a paradigm shift was inevitable for newspapers with the advent of the Internet.
If there was one thing the papers got wrong, it was the increase in nastiness and prejudice. I believe society is much worse today than it has been in a long time. The caring element is what we've lost. We need a new generation of pioneers to undo the carnage.
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As one anecdote, the paper ran an advertising campaign telling people not to use the website on Sundays. ... but why? What did they hope to achieve by that?
I don't know for sure, but Sunday newspapers are typically filled with ads and coupons for local businesses. It's probably the day that is most profitable for newspaper and ad sales together. Why they choose Sunday to stack in ads and coupons, I don't know. Might be related to Church services, I wonder if it's the same for newspapers in other countries?
Almost definitely this. Our local paper has actually tried to literally give away the Sunday edition. ie, a Sunday-only subscription at no cost. Not sure how many takers they got - I didn't sign up.
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#87The 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…
My plumber isn't allowed to call himself a plumber unless he follows the rules for plumbing. Same for my accountant, doctor, electrician, and lock pick. I get the "free speech" argument, but I still cannot understand why we don't have rules about who can and cannot call themselves a journalist. Coming up with these rules might be tricky, but shouldn't we try? Or have we and I'm just uninformed?
I agree, but change journalist to "software developer" and see what kind of reaction you get around here.
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may not be the news world we need But this is the news world we deserve :)
I think your comment is very apt. If you don't pay for the news, you being manipulated is the product. You have to support people who inform for our actual benefit. I subscribe to a couple digital periodicals. My last paper subscription lapsed about four months ago.
This is a false dichotomy. Please present evidence that shows that paying for news means you are not being manipulated. I counter your lack of evidence with an opinion that states the opposite: News being written by people, almost all news has some form of bias. Sometimes it's barely there, sometimes it's in-your-face.
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
My plumber isn't allowed to call himself a plumber unless he follows the rules for plumbing. Same for my accountant, doctor, electrician, and lock pick. I get the "free speech" argument, but I still cannot understand why we don't have rules about who can and cannot call themselves a journalist. Coming up with these rules might be tricky, but shouldn't we try? Or have we and I'm just uninformed?
I agree, but change journalist to "software developer" and see what kind of reaction you get around here.
> I agree, but change journalist to "software developer
Even better- "software engineer"
Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?
#90Earlier 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?
> .you mean professional journalists who actually report on subjects of their expertise?
Go read the IT section of your local paper and see if you still think that.