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When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

sethgodin.typepad.com

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Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#41

Post by lliiffee »

Alex3917 wrote: post #40
lliiffee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% seems to me laughably low. I would think it is something like 50%. It might take up 2% of the space of a paper, but the reasons we will miss it is because no one else appears ready to do it. Why not? Expense.

How many investigative journalists do you think the NY Times employs? IIRC they have about 800 employees, so maybe 100 tops. Let's say the cost of employing them is 20M per year. Last year the NYT made 6 million on revenue of 748 million, which means their costs must be 742 million. This makes Seth's numbers roughly correct.

You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks? Anyway, the fact is, Seth pulled that number out of his ass, and that is irresponsibly sloppy at best. (And, ironically, an excellent example of the kind of thing editors and fact-checkers are for...)

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#42

Post by jonas_b »

maurycy wrote: post #22
cchooper wrote: post #13

I'm not confident that blogs will replace professional commentators. I don't know any blogs that have the same kind of quality as the Financial Times comment section (except Willem Buiter's, which the FT publishes). The same goes for something like The Economist. These people are paid to write, and given budgets that allow them to research stories. They are a world away from unpaid blogging.

And there's also a fear factor. If you're alone guy, how can you fight against big corporation that is able to spend millions on lawyers?

However, I think it's more likely that someone in the possession of whistle blower information would contact a prominent blogger than some hot shot Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist at NY Times.

Also if there are a lot of bloggers out there, chances are greater that "someone" would feel that they have so little to to lose and lots to win from breaking a controversial story, even though some company would sue them.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#43

Post by rokhayakebe »

danohuiginn wrote: post #37
rokhayakebe wrote: post #33

Seating on a porch and spreading a crisp newspaper with my two hands while sipping on a hot coffee. That I will miss, but certainly not the content.

That's quite some maneuver. Do you have a tail?

There is nothing like it on a sunday morning. Specially if you have a nice view (which I do not have).

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#44

Post by anamax »

lliiffee wrote: post #36
biohacker42 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist is doing well I believe, as is the Atlantic monthly. People are willing to pay for quality opinion. People are also willing to pay for late breaking news from the AP and Bloomberg. In addition to the option of paying for late breaking news, TV and radio both give it away for free. The papers are just middle men. They add nothing of value to the AP feed that they just regurgitate. And their editorial wor…

It is oversimplistic to say that papers add nothing of value. Surely you admit that the NYT, Wash. Post, and WSJ do original investigative research? Others papers sometimes do this also, although this seems to be decreasing. Everytime I visit my hometown in flyover country, I am frightened by how worthless the local paper has become. But there was a time, not long ago, when that paper had a staff in most major cities…

> Maybe if the Chicago tribune hadn't cut so much, they would have broken the Blagojevich story instead of the FBI?

The Trib did break the Blago story - the FBI wanted to keep it under wraps for a while because they didn't have all the goods. The Trib wanted to sell papers today.

The Trib has had decades to address Chicago corruption. They didn't do it when they had lots more resources, so it's silly to think that they'd do it now if they still had those resources.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#45

Post by anamax »

lliiffee wrote: post #41
Alex3917 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many investigative journalists do you think the NY Times employs? IIRC they have about 800 employees, so maybe 100 tops. Let's say the cost of employing them is 20M per year. Last year the NYT made 6 million on revenue of 748 million, which means their costs must be 742 million. This makes Seth's numbers roughly correct.

You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks? Anyway, the fact is, Seth pulled that number out of his ass, and that is irresponsibly sloppy at best. (And, ironically, an excellent example of the kind of thing editors and fact-checkers are for...)

> You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks?

You're forgetting the actual paper and the cost of distributing it.

We know the revenues (roughly) and that the expenses are about the same. How many actual investigative reporters do you think that the NYT has? Multiply that number by your guess of their average burdended cost and compare that to the total expenses.

My guess is that the NYT has at most 30 investigative reporters and they cost, on average, $200k/year. That's $6M. If there are actually 100, that's $20M.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#46

Post by smanek »

manmanic wrote: post #10

The only newspaper I would miss is The Economist - global, comprehensive, opinionated (for good or bad), analysis in depth. But I won't have to miss it, since The Economist is doing very well, probably for precisely the same reasons that so many people like me would miss it...

Foreign Affairs (by the Council on Foreign Relations) is great too, if you like The Economist. It goes even more in depth.

And I like the NYTimes, just for their investigative journalism and op-eds (except Krugman ;-)). Exposing the warrantless wiretapping fiasco a few years back bought them a lifetime of goodwill from me.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#47

Post by lliiffee »

anamax wrote: post #45
lliiffee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks? Anyway, the fact is, Seth pulled that number out of his ass, and that is irresponsibly sloppy at best. (And, ironically, an excellent example of the kind of thing editors and fact-checkers are for...)

> You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks? You're forgetting the actual paper and the cost of distributing it. We know the revenues (roughly) and that the expenses are about the same. How many actual investigative reporters do you think that the NYT has? Multiply that number by your guess of their average burdended cost and compare that to…

Frankly, you are also forgetting about the actual paper and cost of distributing it! I can believe your kind of calculations only in the context of a plausible accounting for all NYT expenses. With out factoring management, lawyers, plane tickets, real estate, etc., you will be way off.

BTW 30 is absurdly low. The NYT has more than 30 offices!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_empl...

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#48

Post by wensing »

mainsequence wrote: post #39
wensing wrote: post #19

I work at a newspaper. If they do it right, they won't be gone, they'll just adapt.

What is "right", moving online, incorporating bloggers, interactive visuals? (legitimately curious)

Get small fast, hire hackers, leverage your position as a middle-man between a local audience and local businesses online, and capitalize on the decades of valuable content sitting in your archives. Forget breaking news in print, focus on investigative stories that no one else is going to do but some will pay for. Reduce your publishing cycle to one or two times a week. Adopt a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality when it comes to Craigslist and other local competitors. Launch your own local self-serve ad network. Map your area to an insane depth and resell that content to local businesses and utilities. Watch what Google is doing with Google Local and Street View, mimic and surpass.

All of this is possible, but the change is so dramatic that most newspapers will not do it or will go into shock and instead of focusing on long-term recovery will destroy the one asset they have (a local audience) by adopting fast-money tactics (obnoxious banners and spammy marketing).

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#49

Post by fatty »

wensing wrote: post #48
mainsequence wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "right", moving online, incorporating bloggers, interactive visuals? (legitimately curious)

Get small fast, hire hackers, leverage your position as a middle-man between a local audience and local businesses online, and capitalize on the decades of valuable content sitting in your archives. Forget breaking news in print, focus on investigative stories that no one else is going to do but some will pay for. Reduce your publishing cycle to one or two times a week. Adopt a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality wh…

can i pick you to be on my team?

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#50

Post by wensing »

fatty wrote: post #49
wensing wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get small fast, hire hackers, leverage your position as a middle-man between a local audience and local businesses online, and capitalize on the decades of valuable content sitting in your archives. Forget breaking news in print, focus on investigative stories that no one else is going to do but some will pay for. Reduce your publishing cycle to one or two times a week. Adopt a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality wh…

can i pick you to be on my team?

Our team is hiring: http://djangogigs.com/gigs/468/ :-)
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