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This is why your newspaper is dying

bradcolbow.com

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Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#31

Post by pixdamix »

joshu wrote: post #24
coffeemug wrote: post #22

Traditionally, the newspaper business was about delivering unique information quicker than other newspapers (or, in the case of local newspapers, delivering unique information that wasn't available elsewhere). Newspapers are dying because in an environment where instantaneous content delivery is done at essentially zero cost, fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for undifferentiated content. The author is confus…

subscriber revenue only accounts for 15-25% of total revenues... i definitely agree that bland, undifferentiated content is killing the newspapers. what happens when revenues are down? fire the newsroom, get content from AP. unfortunately, i am the one who is to blame for all the share buttons.

What happens when revenues are down? fire the newsroom, get content from AP. So true, It reminds me of:

"Cutting funding for bike lanes because there isn't enough demand is like cutting literacy funding because not enough people are reading. Bike lanes are not built to satisfy demand. They're meant to serve as an incentive to encourage more cycling by increasing safety." -- Dave Meslin

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#32

Post by wisty »

coffeemug wrote: post #22

Traditionally, the newspaper business was about delivering unique information quicker than other newspapers (or, in the case of local newspapers, delivering unique information that wasn't available elsewhere). Newspapers are dying because in an environment where instantaneous content delivery is done at essentially zero cost, fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for undifferentiated content. The author is confus…

Here's an idea - give subscribers the news first (and use obfuscation to prevent re-posts), then open it up to everyone else some time later.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#33

Post by rmc »

timr wrote: post #4

This is a red herring. The New York Times is "dying" too, but (other than not linking outside the site, which is of debatable consequence to site revenue), it doesn't do any of these things. This is mainly a list of one person's pet peeves, asserted to be the reason that newspapers are hurting. I have another theory: the advertising market for newsprint is being decimated . The pop-unders and massive ads are probably…

(other than not linking outside the site, which is of debatable consequence to site revenue)

It may not directly increase their bottom line, but linking to sources increases access to information and allows the public to get more informed and more knowledgable. Many newspapers say this is one of their goals.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#34

Post by jessedhillon »

Has anyone tried to read SFGate, the online division of the SF Chronicle?

The stories are good enough -- the comments are a trash heap and a den of cluelessness, and this has been the case for years. The editors have done nothing to curb the nastiness, which even Chron bloggers themselves have complained about.[0] The least they could do is post the geographical region the commenters post from, as it really surprises me to think that there is so much negativity in SF. I don't even need to entertain the idea of them using the FB comments plugin.

My point in bringing this up is to add another data point to the "newspaper editors are clueless about how to run a website" narrative. But it also corroborates the idea that these websites are such messes because of their extreme financial situation -- the trainwreck comment sections are also an attraction, in that they are frequently so outrageous and inflammatory that people feel compelled to respond, and somehow that equals dollars.

Personally, the spinelessness of the SFGate editors has turned me off to ever giving them a penny. I've gone from reading it daily to only occasionally reading articles which are forwarded to me, and then, resisting reading the comments.

[0] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cwnevius/detail?entry_id...

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#35

Post by andyking »

jessedhillon wrote: post #34

Has anyone tried to read SFGate, the online division of the SF Chronicle? The stories are good enough -- the comments are a trash heap and a den of cluelessness, and this has been the case for years. The editors have done nothing to curb the nastiness, which even Chron bloggers themselves have complained about.[0] The least they could do is post the geographical region the commenters post from, as it really surprises…

The local press here in the UK seems to attract the same sort of vitriol - there was a fairly humdrum story in my local paper the other day about nuisance pigeons in the town centre being culled. It took about twenty minutes for the first comment to appear suggesting the local unemployed and immigrants instead be culled. More seriously, a friend of a friend died during a cycle race a few weeks ago, and it didn't take long for messages to appear saying it was his own fault for taking part.

I'm sure this is great entertainment for the five or ten people who sit on the internet every day, waiting for stories to be published and then posting their spiteful right-wing rants. But for the vast majority of readers, the thousands who visit to look at the news and click on the ads, it's highly likely that the unpleasant messages are offputting, are a blot on the good reputation of the paper and discourage them from visiting again. I visit the sites to read the news, as written by skilled, qualified journalists. I don't visit to read the unmoderated opinions of "BigMan69" in "Britainistan."

I run a tight ship on the local public radio station site I'm in charge of, which publishes local news stories daily--I encourage people to leave their real name if it's at all possible, and anonymous hateful rants are swiftly removed. Station staff also regularly engage in the comment discussions, which seems to help people self-moderate. If they can see that they're being read and responded to by the people writing the stories, they aren't as likely to go off on rants.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#36

Post by andyking »

MartinCron wrote: post #23
rmason wrote: post #6

This is really only the beginning of a list. Most newspapers don't realize it yet but its getting pointless for them to even publish national and world news. Most twenty somethings i know never read the newspaper. Yet as they buy houses and have kids they develop an intense interest in local news about their community. The company that gets local right will be the new Hearst of this era. I am pretty sure it won't be…

Where I live, Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, we have an excellent hyper-local blog called MyBallard.com. It's a great resource for news that I actually care about but isn't at all interesting to people outside the neighborhood. The company behind it has developed blogs for many other neighborhoods and seems to be reasonably successful at it.

http://forargyll.com/ is a brilliant example of this--they were originally a group set up to launch a community radio station for a remote part of Scotland. This was unsuccessful for a variety of (mainly technical) reasons, so they turned to the web instead.

Now they produce a daily-updated, hyper-local blog covering a huge, sparsely populated area. It's full of pics of local people, debate on local issues and news not covered elsewhere. (People will buy a paper, or read a blog, if you print a picture of someone they know. Why do you think local papers print pages and pages of kids who are starting school every September?)

This is an area that didn't have a local press to speak of before. There was one weekly local newspaper, but nothing on this scale enabling people who might be 50 or 100 miles apart discuss shared issues instantly.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#37

Post by coffeemug »

joshu wrote: post #24
coffeemug wrote: post #22

Traditionally, the newspaper business was about delivering unique information quicker than other newspapers (or, in the case of local newspapers, delivering unique information that wasn't available elsewhere). Newspapers are dying because in an environment where instantaneous content delivery is done at essentially zero cost, fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for undifferentiated content. The author is confus…

subscriber revenue only accounts for 15-25% of total revenues... i definitely agree that bland, undifferentiated content is killing the newspapers. what happens when revenues are down? fire the newsroom, get content from AP. unfortunately, i am the one who is to blame for all the share buttons.

subscriber revenue only accounts for 15-25% of total revenues

Ah, that's incredible, I didn't know that. I think it's really easy to connect the dots here. Since news is a commodity and global distribution is cheap, journalism becomes a business of extremes, much like books and startups. A tiny percentage of journalists who are really good at writing will be in huge demand, while the overwhelming majority will barely be able to sell anything. If you couple that with downward pressure on advertising prices, local papers cannot be "saved" - there's just not enough revenue for them in the market to sustain them at all. I don't think the total market size is shrinking, just that small newspapers can't effectively compete.

That means a few big brands will emerge and take the lion's share of the revenue. Or perhaps even one brand that will take everything, "the facebook (or paypal) of news". It was supposed to be Digg, but I guess not...

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#38

Post by duncanj »

jessedhillon wrote: post #34

Has anyone tried to read SFGate, the online division of the SF Chronicle? The stories are good enough -- the comments are a trash heap and a den of cluelessness, and this has been the case for years. The editors have done nothing to curb the nastiness, which even Chron bloggers themselves have complained about.[0] The least they could do is post the geographical region the commenters post from, as it really surprises…

I don't think these newspapers realize that it makes the reader feel like he's associating with such scummy people. If you read the NY Post online, it seems like all the comments are from the worst kind of racists. Not a place I want to hang out.

Re: This is why your newspaper is dying

#39

Post by estel »

rickmb wrote: post #27

It may not be the reason why newspapers are dying, but it is one of the reasons very few people pity them: in 20 years, there hasn't been one serious effort by a newspaper to create an attractive, pleasant and useful online experience people might actually want to pay for. The readers needs are way down the order or priorities, yet the readers paying for content directly is the only halfway viable business model. It…

I've seen a few decent attempts at this. Particularly the Guardian [1].

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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