Arkansas paper going all digital

Looks like another big paper is biting the bullet. No print edition except Sundays ...


Goodbye to print? The Democrat-Gazette publisher sends more signals - Arkansas Times

 

Finally. Listen suits, let this be your excuse. Start the parade to all digital except for Sunday. No reason to continue this farce. Newspapers are not committed to the print edition AT ALL. So end the ridiculous deadlines and kill print once and for all!!! Cmon Gannett. Lead the way and do it. Follow the Arkansas paper's lead. The Sunday newspaper can be filled with "best of the week" type stuff. Just filler as an excuse for the ads.

 

I love how the author still wanted the news organization to present the online paper in print paper format online. Not a chance. Somebody would have to layout the paper in the old format with jumps and everything. That's just a waste of $$$s to have a layout person. Because of various reasons we've gotten to the point online only is the future. Boomers as they age will be giving up on the product and youngsters won't be reading local news. Advertisers will have their own Websites and won't be supporting the Internet rag.

 

The plan at the moment is a newspaper will still be designed as if it were going to be printed but will presented on the iPad instead. The expectation is the cost savings from not printing and distributing a printed product will allow the newspaper to retain a copy desk to still design a traditional newspaper. Of course, time will tell whether this all will work out as planned. This is a unique experiment going on here.
Here are some stories about the publisher, Walter Hussman Jr., his background and the iPad initiative.
The family business: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. is determined to save the newspaper, one iPad at a time
https://amppob.com/walter-hussman/
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jan/01/digtial-replica-frequently-asked-questions/

 

There's no way a printed looking paper on an iPad is going reach younger generations or satisfy advertisers. It's much like Frederick said. When the baby boomers are dead and gone, so will be newspapers. They need to be developing a new format for their content, one that is interactive with their readers and includes video.

Sounds like to me this is only a temporary resolution.

 

The digital replica is interactive. For example, in some cases, what were photos in print are videos on the digital replica. There are links included with some stories to web content. The digital replica isn't just the exact newspaper as is. All the photos that were black and white in print are color in the replica.

 

Haven't digital versions laid out like the printed product been tried and tossed to the side? Although slow bandwidth might have been it.

This part in the last article was interesting:

 

"robust reading experience"

I fucking hate the word robust and any dipshit manager or owner who uses it in regard to print and digital.

Good for the ADG, though. Make Sunday's paper great and desirable, throw everything else online. Perhaps more will do this.

 

Isn’t “Arkansas paper goes all digital “ kind of like “School for deaf installs quadrophonic sound system?”

Arkansas ranks near the bottom in high-speed internet penetration, largely because large parts of the population is still rural and small town.

In a different market this might work, but here I think it goes over like a lead balloon.

 

Last one out, hit the lights.

 

The E-design looks really crisp, too.

 

One nearby paper went all-digital. They redesigned that publication's website to be different from the rest of the chain's boilerplate template and pushed the e-edition hard, which was formatted to display on iPad screens.

That paper completely shut down in less than a year.