This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thursday Nov. 20 -- Got news or a question?
Got news or a question? Leave it in comments. .
14 comments:
Anonymous
said...
It is so frustrating to go to work each morning and realize what you are doing is failing. What are we doing wrong in terms of stories we are covering, or journalism?
Honestly, you're probably not doing anything wrong. Readership is actually steady or up -- most of the print circulation losses are due to self-cannibalization. Less money spent on call pressure to keep the numbers up, many casual readers migrating to the internet. And some of that circulation shinkage is good, because it saves money on newsprint.
The real problem is a business problem, not a journalism problem. And the business problem is real.
A lot of people say that some sort of left-wing bias is driving off readers, but, frankly, they are ideologues who don't understand the business end of newspapering. It's not as though there are any right-wing news sources that are thriving or gaining the cast-off readers and making money at. (As we've seen recently, right-wingers aren't much good with money.) They do have plenty of lively web sites produced free, as labors of hate. Like this one, for instance.
Take heart: Go out and afflict the comfortable and make that every front every day has a story someone doesn't want to see there. We might go down, but we'll go down swinging.
And, for good measure, I thought the urinal story was pretty interesting.
The local Newspaper's demise has roots that fed by the changes in the technology driven society.
Readers don't have time monday through friday to read the paper, because the whole family is on a fast paced schedule. We consume information at the greatest levels mankind's ever seen, and we demand information with a maniacal zeal.
How can a newspaper, literally printing yesterday's news, laying sun-stroked on the driveway compete with database driven primary information sources? If I need weather information, the NOAA website will serve live radar data.
Do advertisers need a newspaper, when they can employ their own customer databases, and target audience based on customer profiles?
Do readers need a print ad of limited information, when nearly limitless product information and price choices are seconds away?
Do we need a McClatchy reporter to gather information, when a true subject expert will push via database to my mobile device?
McClatchy won't make the tech transition, because corporate culture views IT as revenue draining parasites. The IT managers are prized for their yes-man ability and embrace their role as ugly stepchildren.
It's too late now. All that's left is the next book to examine why the Papers had No Permanence.
8:35 AM, you just keep believing that. Believe it while you are standing in the unemployment line and believe it when the big nasty guy comes along and repossess your car.
Local readers don't care about Gary Pruitt or the MNI business model. They do care about biased reporting pushing a political agenda. And they have no problem canceling their subscriptions and withholding their advertising dollars.
Sorry, ace. In my market, the readers love the paper. Christ, they write us sympathy notes.
We've lost some circ, but it certainly isn't because of any ideological slant. We take 'em all down: Democrats, Republicans and every crook and Rotary Club grifter in between. We write stories about the readers' kids, and school, and about heroic dogs. We're with the sports teams in their glory and defeat. And the readers love us for it.
Hell, even the right-wingers love us. Without us, what would they whine about?
I'm proud to be a newspaperman. I find things out, I hold the bums accountable and I tell the stories that the whole town -- and sometimes the whole nation -- talks about.
We may all get laid off, but we'll be broke-ass in the unemployment line with our heads held high.
It's nothing personal 7:23 but it's really funny when you think about it. Papers of the AP cartel got to where they are today by using AP membership to drive competition out of their cities and ensure that their members had little or no competition at all. Hence all the major 1 paper towns.
The leftists who owned the choke hold on the world of ideas to this very day, have absolutely no clue that in order to survive with competition they can no longer get away with proselytizing their leftist agenda because there is competition on line.
You folks simply cannot continue to alienate half or more of your potential readership and preach against the interests of your advertisers and expect them to stick around.
With a little luck, you will never figure it out so current ideologues will fall like flies and be replaced with the people who made the industry succeed over 100 years ago. People like the founder of the KC Star, William Rockhill Nelson.
Nelson's business strategy called for cheap advance subscriptions and an intention to be “absolutely independent in politics, aiming to deal by all men and all parties with impartiality and fearlessness.”
10:46 Don't even try and use the name "Nelson" with that crap of publication "Ink" the KC Star is trying to push. Nelson is rolling over in his grave. My cat wouldn't even pee on it.
It is hard to believe what the leftists have done to it. When you think about it though, what doesn't become an ugly failure when leftists get a hold of it?
My point stands though. Before they got a hold of it, the Star was a great and well respected paper. Now it is a laughing stock.
"We may all get laid off, but we'll be broke-ass in the unemployment line with our heads held high."
Oh God... that is so funny on so many levels. You still don't get it do you. When people know more about Sarah Palin's wardrobe than they do about Obama's time at Columbia or how many times he voted "present" while in the Illinois legislature, you sure as hell are not "a newsman" or a journalist (urinalist?).
Look around... all your buddies are lock step on guns, abortion, religion, capitalism, diversity and every other liberal cause.
Hold your head up high.... what a joke. Your blind arrogance has ruined a once proud profession. People don't believe you and don't trust you and as a result will not pay for your product.
It is just too bad so many of the production people have to eat at the same table as the arrogant assholes that caused the problem.
Maybe we just don't quite know how to construct the post-newspaper world. I wonder how many Mountain Dew-drinking, thumb-typing, ipod listening members ANY media company has on their board of directors? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5wjjNct8U
The biggest decline in newspapers comes from them being bought up by huge companies and then reprinting recycled news from the AP that is days old. Newspapers need to be local, reporting things that are imporatant and relevant to the area they serve. I'd rather get my national news from one of the networks anyway.
14 comments:
It is so frustrating to go to work each morning and realize what you are doing is failing. What are we doing wrong in terms of stories we are covering, or journalism?
7:23 Too many stories about urinals
7:23 Ditto. You got it.
Honestly, you're probably not doing anything wrong. Readership is actually steady or up -- most of the print circulation losses are due to self-cannibalization. Less money spent on call pressure to keep the numbers up, many casual readers migrating to the internet. And some of that circulation shinkage is good, because it saves money on newsprint.
The real problem is a business problem, not a journalism problem. And the business problem is real.
A lot of people say that some sort of left-wing bias is driving off readers, but, frankly, they are ideologues who don't understand the business end of newspapering. It's not as though there are any right-wing news sources that are thriving or gaining the cast-off readers and making money at. (As we've seen recently, right-wingers aren't much good with money.) They do have plenty of lively web sites produced free, as labors of hate. Like this one, for instance.
Take heart: Go out and afflict the comfortable and make that every front every day has a story someone doesn't want to see there. We might go down, but we'll go down swinging.
And, for good measure, I thought the urinal story was pretty interesting.
The local Newspaper's demise has roots that fed by the changes in the technology driven society.
Readers don't have time monday through friday to read the paper, because the whole family is on a fast paced schedule. We consume information at the greatest levels mankind's ever seen, and we demand information with a maniacal zeal.
How can a newspaper, literally printing yesterday's news, laying sun-stroked on the driveway compete with database driven primary information sources? If I need weather information, the NOAA website will serve live radar data.
Do advertisers need a newspaper, when they can employ their own customer databases, and target audience based on customer profiles?
Do readers need a print ad of limited information, when nearly limitless product information and price choices are seconds away?
Do we need a McClatchy reporter to gather information, when a true subject expert will push via database to my mobile device?
McClatchy won't make the tech transition, because corporate culture views IT as revenue draining parasites. The IT managers are prized for their yes-man ability and embrace their role as ugly stepchildren.
It's too late now. All that's left is the next book to examine why the Papers had No Permanence.
8:35 AM, you just keep believing that. Believe it while you are standing in the unemployment line and believe it when the big nasty guy comes along and repossess your car.
Local readers don't care about Gary Pruitt or the MNI business model. They do care about biased reporting pushing a political agenda. And they have no problem canceling their subscriptions and withholding their advertising dollars.
Sorry, ace. In my market, the readers love the paper. Christ, they write us sympathy notes.
We've lost some circ, but it certainly isn't because of any ideological slant. We take 'em all down: Democrats, Republicans and every crook and Rotary Club grifter in between. We write stories about the readers' kids, and school, and about heroic dogs. We're with the sports teams in their glory and defeat. And the readers love us for it.
Hell, even the right-wingers love us. Without us, what would they whine about?
I'm proud to be a newspaperman. I find things out, I hold the bums accountable and I tell the stories that the whole town -- and sometimes the whole nation -- talks about.
We may all get laid off, but we'll be broke-ass in the unemployment line with our heads held high.
It's nothing personal 7:23 but it's really funny when you think about it. Papers of the AP cartel got to where they are today by using AP membership to drive competition out of their cities and ensure that their members had little or no competition at all. Hence all the major 1 paper towns.
The leftists who owned the choke hold on the world of ideas to this very day, have absolutely no clue that in order to survive with competition they can no longer get away with proselytizing their leftist agenda because there is competition on line.
You folks simply cannot continue to alienate half or more of your potential readership and preach against the interests of your advertisers and expect them to stick around.
With a little luck, you will never figure it out so current ideologues will fall like flies and be replaced with the people who made the industry succeed over 100 years ago. People like the founder of the KC Star, William Rockhill Nelson.
Nelson's business strategy called for cheap advance subscriptions and an intention to be “absolutely independent in politics, aiming to deal by all men and all parties with impartiality and fearlessness.”
Nelson got it. Y'all don't.
10:46 Don't even try and use the name "Nelson" with that crap of publication "Ink" the KC Star is trying to push. Nelson is rolling over in his grave. My cat wouldn't even pee on it.
It is hard to believe what the leftists have done to it. When you think about it though, what doesn't become an ugly failure when leftists get a hold of it?
My point stands though. Before they got a hold of it, the Star was a great and well respected paper. Now it is a laughing stock.
"We may all get laid off, but we'll be broke-ass in the unemployment line with our heads held high."
Oh God... that is so funny on so many levels. You still don't get it do you. When people know more about Sarah Palin's wardrobe than they do about Obama's time at Columbia or how many times he voted "present" while in the Illinois legislature, you sure as hell are not "a newsman" or a journalist (urinalist?).
Look around... all your buddies are lock step on guns, abortion, religion, capitalism, diversity and every other liberal cause.
Hold your head up high.... what a joke. Your blind arrogance has ruined a once proud profession. People don't believe you and don't trust you and as a result will not pay for your product.
It is just too bad so many of the production people have to eat at the same table as the arrogant assholes that caused the problem.
Maybe we just don't quite know how to construct the post-newspaper world. I wonder how many Mountain Dew-drinking, thumb-typing, ipod listening members ANY media company has on their board of directors? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5wjjNct8U
The biggest decline in newspapers comes from them being bought up by huge companies and then reprinting recycled news from the AP that is days old. Newspapers need to be local, reporting things that are imporatant and relevant to the area they serve. I'd rather get my national news from one of the networks anyway.
AP slashing jobs. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4AJ7V420081120?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
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