1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Keep an eye/ear out for Tampa

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Moderator1, Dec 9, 2008.

  1. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Serious question: Who are they going to get to print and deliver the thing? If it's me, and I go from a full-time printing job to one day a week, I tell them to shove it.

    And if I spent 15 years delivering the paper every day and they want to cut it to one day, I tell them to deliver it themselves.

    Just wouldn't be worth it.
     
  2. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Fine. Let's get it on. Enough with the hemming and hawing about what the future is, the future is now.
     
  3. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    You're gonna need a couple roofies for me to get it on with that plan just yet.
     
  4. Not to toot my own horn (well, maybe a little), but this is the same prediction I made two years at a roundtable on future of the biz. That a major newspaper would convert to Sunday print (or Wed & Sun), and online the rest of the week at a subscription price ... and go down in flames.

    But other newspapers would follow suit after a reasonable interval of studying why that paper failed, and make a financial go of it. You just don't want to be the sacrificial lamb that goes first. Guess Zell found someone to lead to slaughter.
     
  5. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    I think it's a great idea, and long overdue.

    Most newspapers don't have full-time delivery drivers anymore anyway. They're all contractors. The press is running (and, hopefully, paying for itself) with commercial print jobs. The "traditional newspaper reader" is becoming a thing of the past, rapidly. Media General has a great newsroom in Tampa -- staffed with both print and television reporters, so the learning curve for "multimedia" is drastically reduced.
    It's time to start thinking about doing things differently. This is a good start. What does the Tampa Tribune have to lose by doing this? By the time 2009 is over, the only multiple-daily newspaper cities are going to be the five biggest. Strike out looking, or strike out swinging.

    If the Tampa Tribune can give me a Sunday paper worthy of the name -- a magazine-style analysis-driven publication filled with great writing, great photography and great local stories that doesn't look like it was slapped together on a Saturday night -- I'll be the first subscriber. (And yes, I live in Tampa, and no, I subscribe to neither paper at present, although when I buy single-copy, it's always the St. Pete Times.) Like Moddy says: GIVE ME SOMETHING TO READ. They're not doing it now. By rethinking the production cycle, maybe there's a fighting chance.

    The only problem that MG would have with launching this right now is that the current incarnation of tbo.com is atrocious in every way. That needs to be fixed, stat.

    LSS, not sure what the Zell connection is?
     
  6. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    That's the million-dollar question -- will a once-a-week print edition have some elbow grease put into it or will a Web-first, overworked staff be asked to treat it as an afterthought?
     
  7. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    So, yeah. That's it. I'm curious to know if this WILL be done or remains just an idea - though the Super Bowl will be here pretty quick. Anyone know if this is actually done?
     
  8. derwood

    derwood Active Member

    For this plan to work they will need to redesign their website.
     
  9. somewriter

    somewriter Member

    So this would be a localized Time magazine? Because that business model is working so well.
     
  10. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Every MG paper needs to redesign the web site. it's abhorrent. what richmond has done to its site is laughable. it went with a new design and got 20 times worse.
     
  11. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    Who's going to write the Sunday reader, the in-depth takeout piece? Regular staff that spends the rest of the week constantly updating the Web and barely has time to do any research on a good Sunday feature or enterprise story? Or freelancers?
     
  12. SportsGuyBCK

    SportsGuyBCK Active Member

    All the MG papers are using that same Web site design package (although it looks like Richmond has done some modifications to its site) ... and the design package came from an outside vendor ... all that money MG wasted hiring a bunch of people for its interactive division, and none of them seem to be able to design and program a Web site ...

    I've said this before -- You wanna solve MGs problems in one fell swoop? Have everyone working in a vice presidents-level position and above line up, count off 1-10, then tell everyone who counted 1 through 9 they were fired, with no exceptions and no "golden parachute" ...
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page