Do Newspapers Still Make Sense?

I have worked at a daily PM and it made coverage of Sept. 11 better in our paper than any other in the area. I'm not saying that you will break stuff all day, but you will get the early morning and early afternoon shit that AMs can only put a breaking alert online.

 

How many PMs have seen circulation rise in the past 15-20 years?

They might be better and more well-rounded than AMs, but that doesn't mean they're more marketable to the public.

Besides, a lot of PMs I've seen don't have a hell of lot more than the AMs in their area, beyond all the West Coast scores. Many of them deadline by 9 or 9:30 a.m. and are on the stands by noon. Hardly "PM"

 

I agree. That's why we make it a real PM. It's on your doorstep at 4 p.m. to make sure it's waiting for the average blokes return from work.

To just say keep doing it as we are doesn't work. That's what management is saying, and look what's happening. They cut and run and think things will change? It's time to do something drastic and breathe life into a stagnant business.

 

The fallacy in that question is that the people we've entrusted to keep newspapers alive have allowed PMs to die.

Perhaps it's time not to trust those people anymore.

 

Sure. But is there anyone else around to trust? And, fwiw, most of them died before the Internet changed the rules of the game.

Most PMs I've had experience with seem like AMs, except the news stories are written at night instead of the afternoon. Yesterday's news tonight, instead of yesterday's news this morning. No big difference.

A serious focus on enterprise, analysis and story-telling are the way to go. On breaking stuff, you'll never catch up to the news cycle - too much happens during the afternoon when you're at press - so just stick the facts on the web and tell us what it means in the next available newspaper. That's the direction many papers are heading anyway; we might as well time our publication to take better advantage of it.

 

Oh, good Lord. You guys.
Ask Newsweek, Time and Life how that's going.

There is a difference between a "primary" delivery system and abandoning news and news analysis altogether.

 

Nobody proposes "abandoning news." What we propose is abandoning gigantic rolls of dead trees as the first-choice method of delivering that news, while repackaging the paper product into something directed at people who want to read more than just the headlines.

You can't possibly believe that the traditional newspaper can be saved.

 

I don't even believe that in the long-term sense anymore, and I thought I was one of the last holdouts.

 

Let's say I do. For argument sake.
I'll take my dying stance over one that thinks that a newspaper can reform or reinvent to a news magazine with a paltry staff of $30k journalists. When, right before our eyes, we see such efforts -- with some of the best writers of our generation -- failing at that very mission. You're leaving one burning building for one downwind.