Here's what I don't get ...

Exactly. The other one I love is being thousands under budget in the newsroom, mostly because of staff cuts, and yet no standard-of-living increases or holiday bonuses. Shameful.

 

Family owned. No suits. And losing lots. So I'm probably not in the same boat as most of the people here, but still it's a bad situation.

 

Or read about the latest town celebration.

 

My apartment rent includes water, so I have no need for the paper.

 

when small and mid-size newspapers are finally gone forever, it will take about 5-10 years before folks realize what they're missing. presumably at that point the cycle will start all over again.

 

All I want are the JV scores, dammit!

 

Well, I think what we mean is "people are happy being uninformed about the things we are reporting on."

I think for years people were buying the paper for obits, comics, classifieds and such, and we all assumed they actually cared about the stuff we were reporting on. And maybe they did, because they didn't have any other choice. But with the web, we all have our own little niche of stuff that we care about, and it's not local affairs for most.

 

What we're running into is people still like the paper but are dropping their subscriptions as they pinch pennies. We've got some competition, three TV stations and a metro daily with a freebie that circulates in our area.
Foreclosures have hit our area hard and I mean hard. We average about 12 pages a week in the legals. All those legals are great for the bottom line but ... the other side of the coin ain't real pretty.
Even our corporate president is trying to figure out what the hell people want out of their paper and what will make them fork over dough to take it. He says content but that takes resources, either in money for content or money in people to provide it.

 

We're living in an age we're it is more difficult to be all things to everyone. See Sears, Montgomery Ward, Time, Newsweek, CNN....

WalMart has succeeded because they focused on areas of the country where they could be the only source for general goods in a region. If newspapers could keep all other news media from their circulation area - they'd be doing great. But the local paper is now competing with bigger papers in the closest big city, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, etc.

 

I know you are being sort of sarcastic about that but I can't tell you how many breaking news stories I find out about through Twitter. In turn, I got to other websites, for the follow up. Easier for me to click the Twitter app on my BBM than to type and wait for my browser to load a newspaper site. Plus I can't do things like check newspaper sites or read the paper at stoplights, in the lunchroom at work, in between meetings or shit, on the weekend when I am drunk on the lake.

 

It appears my point is made. You find out news through Twitter, at a stoplight or when you are drunk on the lake, and that is all you need.

 

We serve Oregon's fourth-largest city and do a great job at it. Surprisingly, we're about 20 minutes outside or Portland and the city is largely ignored by the state's big paper. We have a captive audience or a large potential size that is not being served elsewhere, and I've always felt our circulation numbers are lower than I would expect.

Those that read us are extremely loyal and passionate, but in a city of our size I would expect more to be subscribing. Financially, we seem to be doing "okay"...of course that still means furloughs are in place, but in the process of being lifted.