A Radical Proposal

It isn't that easy to create brand names with market value, even (maybe especially) if you're giving the product away. Dirk has described the current Internet well. But as of yet, replacements for the functions of traditional news media have yet to emerge, or if they have, are very small businesses unable to function on more than a local or very specialized level.
The Economist is thriving while Newsweek and Time are dying. Same product, one with many financial problems as a whole. But the Economist is a great read and Time and Newsweek suck.
Quality matters, Internet or no.

 

It's too late and nobody in power will listen. You have to remember, newspaper owners have been among the dumbest individuals ever to own businesses. They were sold a bill of goods that this was the way to go.
The way to go was to do what you said, generate information you can't get anywhere else and sell the fucking ads.
But pubishers, general managers, bean counters do not believe their local content is worth a shit because they have always devalued their employees who are among the lowest paid college grads in the workforce. To have them think their product and coverage of the local pro teams/colleges/high schools is special is beyond them.
They've started and contributed to the demise of newspapers and are too stupid to realize killing their Websites NOW is the only way to go.
This business is dead and can't be saved because the people running the business can't be changed.

 

Just an interesting aside, I know a freelancer who does work for the Economist. With the no byline policy there, she's free to write for other mags and does so.
She often covers the same topics, but in different ways. In the Economist her pieces are "quirky" and "entertaining." Yet the work she does for Newsweek is "leaden" and "lacking."
Just interesting.
Also interesting is Pope's discussion of the Times and WSJ. The WSJ puts much of its content behind a paywall and, as a paper, they still have an enormous amount of influence. Going free would cost the Journal a big chunk of money since many people subscribe to the print edition to have access to the online edition. I don't know why that model couldn't be duplicated with NY Times' international and national coverage and the Post's coverage of federal government.
That's just a couple of examples.

 

Uh, no. The NYT could switch to stone tablets tomorrow and it would still wield the same influence with decision-makers in Washington and on talk shows. And thus, influence with those who won't necessarily read the NYT. I doubt the average booger-picking slob reading a blog actually follows links to Krugman's column anyway. Their brains are already strained by the Cliffs Notes version when some blowhole online expresses glee/outrage over what Krugman wrote.

You can obviously find exceptions on a thousand-persons staff, but what separates the NYT from almost every newspaper is that many of the people who write about a specialty are qualified to do so -- they aren't simply generalists (like me and most people in the biz) who got bumped into a spot because a need arose. They are experts in their field. A person with Krugman's qualifications outside newspapers is going to want either a shitload of money, the prestige of appearing in a publication with an established reputation or both.

Sure, people can come along and try to fill the void, but they won't have the pre-existing credibility, the academic heft or the support system that a Krugman gets from the NYT. Krugman didn't make the NYT and the NYT didn't make Krugman. They were influential without each other.

 

Frank is right. Newspapers bought into the illogical argument that if they didn't go to the free Web format, they would be passed by. That argument proved to be the bullet to kill the newspaper industry. People would have continued to buy newspapers to get the expert local take on sports.

 

Nah.

 

Here's a VERY alarming fact about newspaper Web sites. In 22 out of the 80 largest markets in 2008, up from 16 in 2007, TV station sites got more traffic than newspaper sites during comparable breaking news events. The brand damage is substantial. Fewer and fewer people think their newspaper is a sufficient source of information.
Of course, they're probably right.

 

For years, newspapers routinely kicked TV stations' asses on depth of reporting. When you thought "breaking news," you thought TV (or radio). Ideally, people want to see. Video helps them do that. TV does video better than newspapers pretending they know how to shoot video do video. It's not enough to say "We've got video!"

That aspect of most newspaper Web sites is amateur hour.

 

JD, you are right. But in the past, newspaper Web sites always kicked ass in traffic during big stories, precisely because people wanted in depth information because they thought that was important to them. An increasing number of them are voting with their mice to the effect newspapers are no longer delivering what was supposed to be their strength.

 

No doubt. The sample group of papers, for the most part, that I had in mind when I posted that probably consisted of smaller papers than the ones you are talking about. Thus, they were never as equipped as others for in-depth information on the Web during breaking and continuing stories. Expanding my thinking to the type of paper Web sites you're talking about, I concur even more than I did earlier (and I nodded my head in agreement before I posted).

And I agree: It's alarming.

 

So would we also ban their reporters from TV and radio, then? As I thought through this scenario, if push came to shove, I would simply go on with my life without the Journal, Times, and Post if they nuked their Web sites. But I'd still be watching their reporters and commentators on TV, and their employers still wouldn't get money from me.

By the way, is it Google's fault that the New York Times decided to buy a chunk of a major league baseball franchise? Or that it built a decadent monument to itself on some of the world's most expensive land during the peak of a real estate bubble?

 

Are you a fan of any teams? I am a fan of a few teams and I can assure you I want to read the takes of those newspaper writers who cover those teams closely. So you are one of those who thinks ESPN's national game story on your team is enough? I call bullshit. Give me the local take.
Newspapers gave up; that is the bottom line.