Goodbye, daily newspapers in Detroit
 

As a survivor of the newspaper industry (1), I've been expecting this at one or another major newspaper sooner or later. Still hurts to see it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/1..._n_150721.html

And here's what is supposedly the actual circulation notice at the Freep.

https://ecm-c-mass2one.leepfrog.com/...d.cfm?ccode=pm

(1) I'm yet another member of the American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites. If only the beancounters had recognized inevitability when they saw it, maybe tens of thousands of actual reporters would still have jobs.

Daily Newspapers have been getting pummeled for years. The bulk of their income is from the classifieds section. That primarily was made up of Auto, real estate and help wanted ads. These have been getting bleed dry form the internet and the latest economic crisis has only exacerbated the situation. There are over 30 daily papers for sale right now and no one is looking to buy them. The Rocky mountain news is another example.

The readership has been the other half of the problem for papers. Their circulation figures have been declining for a long time and their reader demographics show that their only reaching on average a much older segment of the population. These readers are literally dying off, and so are the papers. They missed the chance to get online first and now they are simply dinosaurs waiting for extinction.

Update: Am told that the Detroit papers will continue to print every day, but people will only be able to subscribe to the Thursday (grocery ads) and Sunday (loaded with ads) editions.

Saves 'em a boatload in terms of not hiring a bunch of people to deliver the paper 7 days, but what happens if they don't get the bump in newsstand sales they're expecting?

Newspapers, TV news, and news magazines are all suffering from declining users, and the reason is simple. They now have competition from the internet, and surfers can now get different perspectives on the news, instead of the cookie cutter clones the media have been offering for decades. They are dinosaurs, and they can't figure out why.

This is an opportunity for some unemployed (there are a few in Detroit, right?) to do a little entrepreneurial paper distribution. ;)

I remember reading the Philadelphia Inquirer daily. When the web came around, and suddenly articles from around the world were available, it made it clear how shitty a paper it actually was for a big city. How little content they actually had to produce in order to do a daily paper. How crappy the editorials were for a big deal editorial board.

I'll never get over the day I read the Inqy story about how the Jersey shore faces a deluge of car accidents during the summer because 24% of their accidents happen in June, July, and August. I remember thinking that if they had a Reply button there would be more useful information in the comments than in the stories.

Not exactly. Most of the newspapers and web sites get their news from the same places -- take a look at how many web sites take feeds from the Associated Press. Same content, different addresses. Way back when, that model worked. People in Detroit didn't often get to read the Miami Herald, for instance, so it didn't make a difference.

If you want to know what really went wrong, it went like this: The business types looked at us reporters, declared that we silly bachelor-of-arts types don't understand how business really works and condescendingly informed us that the Internet would never supplant the daily dead-tree product because ... well, the daily newspaper is a tradition and nothing could ever break that tradition. :mad:

Actually, those folks couldn't figure out how to make money on it. In a good business environment, most businesses turn a profit of six or seven percent. Traditionally, newspapers' profit margins have run 20 percent or more --- an enormous return on investment, almost a license to print money. Circulation revenues are just a drop in the bucket compared to what the advertisements bring in.

We-the-journalists were ready a decade and more ago to explore paid online methods of distribution. Unfortunately, the bean counters weren't ready to accept a lower profit margin than what they had grown used to, so they declared online product secondary to what they consider the real product --- the daily printed newspaper. The idea that people would get used to the online product, and that younger people who never knew any other way would abandon the print product ... the bean counters never really considered that possibility until about four or five years ago, which was at least four or five years too late.

Thus endeth my rant.

(And if I sound bitter about that ... well, that's because I was one of the journalists rather than one of the bean counters.)

Based on what I've seen, most "comments" sections are useless. Lots of ill-informed prattle, no real information.

As opposed to newspapers and TV very informed prattle, no real information.

update....

Chicago's newspapers facing troubled futures

I have nothing to add. As a former employee at a daily, this day has been coming for a long time.

Seems like 85% of bean counters are at fault....

Well that or its 85% tw's fault

But tw didn't work for the papers, you did... it's your fault. :haha:

See, I told my boss he couldn't do it without me - its true!

Greedy little turds that they are …

It isn't just in Detroit. All of them are having major problems. Its just a dying industry. This is one of my former employers:

Gannett to Furlough Workers for Week

Yea, pretty amazing. I think the worst part about it is that there are and will still be times when you can't link up to the web and a really good newspaper is a great way to pass the time.

That's what the Kindle is for, when you're off the net!

I put the Philly Inquirer Front Page into my Google Reader for the last week. None of the stories caused me to click through to read the whole thing. I was hoping for more of a local angle, since the net delivers much better national and international news. But 60% of their stories are still natl/internatl, and the rest are just not all that interesting.

And much of it is "non-news". Big front page story today? There are a lot of Philadelphia Eagles fans in Phoenix. No shit? What hard-working reporter worked that story? It had to be a tough assignment.

Well it was a great idea to go down there and get the story and not be where it was cold and snowing.

"No, sir Mr. Editor, I still need a few more weeks in Phoenix to wrap this up for you. And it is going to be a good one." : :D

FWIW - staff writer Peter Mucha. Don't know the guy and really don't care. I agree UT - thats part of the reason why they are dinosaurs and soon to be extinct.

Mexican mogul Slim sees opportunity in NY Times

New York Times offers prestige to Mexican billionaire looking to expand into US market

MEXICO CITY (AP) --

Clear Channel cuts 1,850 jobs, 9 pct of work force

Does anyone even listen to commercials on the radio anymore? How bullish can they really be a bout this market?

Carlos Slim owns one of the Mexican telephone companies - Taco Bell.

Naughty HLJ.

L.A. Times to cut 300 jobs

I don't see these jobs ever coming back. With severe competition from the electronic competitors and rapidly dying/declining readership, I think this is a permanent change.

Newspaper convention canceled amid industry woes

Save some trees - shut 'em all down.

San Francisco May Be Largest City to Lose Main Paper


By Greg Bensinger

The Philadelphia Inquirer claims it's still a profitable operation, however. The filing is to protect them from past debts until they can get them restructured.

Journalism evolving, not dying: science author
Something related to this thread and the conversation in a few others. I think he has some good insight into the issue. Especially this line -
"We spend so much time figuring out how to keep the old model on life support that we don't figure out how to build the new one."

Clay Shirky understands this stuff better than anyone else. He just uncorked one on newspapers and the Internet. Sample:

Not necessarily, I don't care if I read what happened at Tuesday night's town council meeting on Wednesday, Thursday, or even Friday. Not everything is the paper is breaking news, and much of it is interesting but you wouldn't go searching for it.

They don't take into account how a paper is used. On the bus or train, at work, can I borrow the movie listings section a minute, fold up the sports section and stick it in your back pocket on the way to the shithouse.
Not everyone sits at a desk with a computer all day. Those hand held thingys are neither comfortable nor practical to just scan while you eat your sandwich... tough on the eyes too.

Well the new generation has no trouble reading whatever they want on their phones :eek:

Whatever they want? Do they know what they want? How do their broaden their horizons on Fark? By the time they do have trouble they'll have no choice.

I never said it was a good thing, just that it is what it is.

The answer is the Kindle. Then you get news, blogs and books in a portable format with paper-like crispness.

Hey it's only like $359.

You still have to use your hands and you wouldn't want to throw it in the shithouse trashcan when you're done.

This is the strength of a good newspaper that the internet doesn't even come close to touching. When you open up a newspaper, you are flipping the pages and seeing all these different stories. You encounter stories that you would never think to look up on your own. If it was a link on the internet, you wouldn't bother to click it. But there it is, right in front of you, staring you in the face. So maybe you read the first paragraph. The story is written in a way that the first paragraph gives you the most important information first. If it grabs you, you read a little further.

You can spend 5 minutes reading the paper, and get all the basic information, or you can spend 2 hours reading the thing from cover to cover. It's harder to do that with the internet.

Plus, the local news simply isn't covered as well anywhere else on the internet. Bits and pieces, sure, but not everything.

It is clearly a revolution, and bitching and moaning about it isn't going to stop it. But it doesn't mean I have to like losing such an important aspect of what makes society work today.

Right, and laying open while you've got your lunch in both hands, your eyes wander over the paper picking out stuff.

I don't disagree with either of you. I think the biggest loss will be the investigative journalism though. For example, Watergate for one. Another would be the Fumo case (local to PA) which was broken open in large part from articles in the Inquirer.

I agree wholeheartedly with that classic.

Ok, What the hell is going on? Two people have agreed with me in the same day! Is it a full moon or are we upon the apocalypse... what?

Mercury is in retrograde... :D

Huh?

I heard on NPR just a bit ago that Tuesday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer will be the last printed version. They are going digital only.

Investigative journalism is allmost dead already. :(


ETA So is speling, aparuntly.

Yup Dar - I heard the same thing.

Seattle paper stops the presses, goes online only

Here is another

Ex-Rocky Mountain News staffers plan news Web site

I don't think that investigative journalism will go away entirely. What you'll see is more organizations like AP and UPI supplying stories to the web news providers.

AP sucks worse than most newspaper reporters.

We haven't had much true journalism anywhere in the system for some time now. Most local newspapers reprint a combination of information anybody can get, and information fed to them by people wanting publicity or stories.

Half the "real" news is not from reporters calling people, it's from people calling reporters. This information will move to wherever the eyeballs are.

Aside from the real news from NYT and WaPo, we simply aren't losing that much actual news from newspapers. Here are the Philadelphia Inquirer front page stories from Monday (yesterday):

1. Suburban school districts are finding it harder to get extra money from fund-raisers and so can't afford the special "extras" outside their traditional budgets. Unavailable due to cuts: chamber music coaches, Arabic teachers, smartboards. Not news: the precious snowflakes will have to learn the basics for a while.

2. Pakistan to reinstate chief justice. an AP story, and not a very important one. News failure: the importance of Pakistan's chief justice will be lost on all but 1% of readers, and there are about 50 more important stories in the region.

3. Storage unit auctions on the rise. When people abandon their rented storage units, the contents are auctioned all at once. Happening more often right now. A hard-working reporter wasted time to bring you this front-page item.

4. Fumo trial status. Highly-visible local corrupt politician gets closer to his jail sentence. News.

5. AIG lists payouts from its bailout. Washington Post story. News.

What do you miss by the loss of the Inquirer, the biggest daily in the 5th largest city? Two actual news stories, one which appears nationally anyway, and a local one which can wait for the trial's verdict. One item which doesn't mean much to anyone. And two "non-news" stories of little importance to anyone.

Throw out the front page, actually the whole "A" section. The value of the Local paper is in the other sections, that's what's hard to get elsewhere.

Bingo.

Well, somebody has to tell them, because they are paying big money for those AP and WaPo stories.

When Mercury goes Retrograde, it appears the planet is moving backward. It isn't really, it is an optical illusion. But, Mercury rules communication, so when it's retrograde, it's said there is all kinds of miscommunication, and anything dealing with communication and understanding goes haywire. Hence my little joke. :p

When Mercenary goes retorgrade, all bets are off. :D

It makes me very sad. Obama is worried about the auto industry going away, but has he said anything about this? Why aren't we trying to save newspapers? :(

Oh, believe me, I've learned MANY things on Fark I had never known about before.

:bites tongue:

Yeh - who was gonna read any of that when the BIG story was the verdict that already came out?

The Ann Arbor News joins the ranks:

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/...se_in_jul.html

I did, to find out what he was guilty of and the collateral fallout that they think will happen.

Tonight I posted a clipping in Chisinhuston's Cape Town thread that I never would have seen on the internet. I'm sure it's there somewhere but I wouldn't have gone looking for it, because it's too off the wall.

I agree with your second point Bruce and thats what is going to suffer. As far as the Fumo trial ... There was no need to wait till the next day to find out that info, that was posted the moment it happened.

Yes, but in bits and pieces, some didn't actually come out until they were well into the trial. It's the difference between, he's accused of climbing a mountain, and he's convicted of climbing a mountain, while trespassing on Joe Blow's land, and with the help of Mr Somebody cut down trees for firewood.