David Carr on MediaNews' John Patton

The formula for squeezing profits is not identical to the formula for good journalism, something the piece seemed to breezily ignore.

 

How did JRC's switch to open-source software go? Are they using Linux for all of the workstations? What about word processing and pagination?

BTW, what do reporters get instead of Flip camera's now?

 

I can only imagine the disaster a newspaper using Scribus would look like. I've toyed around with it and it's useless in comparison to ID.

 

Almost every cell phone comes with some sort of video recorder. I love my Flip video cameras and still use them. Relatively cheap cameras are out there by Sony and other companies. Hearing someone with a plan on how to move newspapers into the digital age is actually a bit refreshing. Hearing more layoffs and consolidation is in the future plans too is disheartening.

 

Why the hell would anyone want anything that got its roots in Torrington?

 

Funny thing about the cell phones.

As our shop was dealing with at least the third major meltdown of our phone system, which was installed about a year ago (incoming calls always get busy signal, saved voice mail messages vaporized, etc.), one of the reporters wondered, "Why didn't they just buy all of us company cell phones?"

The answer -- given half jokingly, but 100 percent on the money by our city editor: "Because the cell phone companies don't advertise in the paper anymore."

That's newspaper management 101.

 

Funny, but we're not using Scribus or other free stuff at our Digital First shop. Still using the Flips, though.

 

So the open source initiative was just a load of crap?

 

Yup.

 

I feel pretty strongly that video isn't the answer.

 

Herbert Anchovy reinvented himself. Why not Nick?