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Kentucky basketball game tonight; flame away on me

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Fredrick, Nov 15, 2008.

  1. Good points, but we have to be careful not to misinterpet surveys. That was a survey of ... fans of one Major League Baseball team. It stands to reason they read MLB.com. Newspapers' readership is broader than that, so they have to interpret marketing studies in a different way.

    Corporations pay handsomely for marketing analysis that has meaning, and unfortunately there's a lot of it that's misinterpreted and loaded with logical fallacies.

    Not disagreeing with your main point, but I think part of the reason we're in the state we're in is there has been a lot of misunderstanding of what studies/surveys mean and what they don't, and when they fit one situation but not another.
     
  2. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Why did circulation drop in the years before the Internet?
     
  3. Appgrad05

    Appgrad05 Active Member

    Shottie is right — newspapers are going to be dead in 100 years. Probably less than that.
    We'll work for news organizations. Content will be sent directly to the cell phone, or whatever product Apple comes up with that we all have to have. You can go to the web site, and see everything there.
    This is not necessarily a bad thing. There was a time, remember, when news traveled by town crier. We progressed into newspapers, and we'll progress into something else (be it computer, cell phone, PDA or TBD).
    Oh, and Fredrick is an angrier Joe Williams. That scares me more than anything else on this thread.
     
  4. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    My newspaper's website has a very strong online readership of people ages 40-55. So it is not entirely an age thing. Older people know how to use computers now. Shit my 80 year old grandma is on the internet now. She didn';t know what a computer was until 10 years ago.
     
  5. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    As of last week, my Mom's on there. My son won't invite her as a friend, though, given all the photos of college debauchery he has posted on his page.
     
  6. CollegeJournalist

    CollegeJournalist Active Member

    Exactly.

    I've long thought a collection of four or five hard-working, passionate journalists could start a web only edition and blow the hell out of the daily in the area. Since we're talking about Kentucky, let's take Louisville for example, where the only games in town are high school sports, UK and UofL.

    The Courier-Journal covers maybe two high school football games every night during the regular season. You get two stories and a lot of called-in briefs.

    Now, imagine four guys/gals starting a Web site devoted to good HS sports coverage. Those four do it all: report, write, shoot and even do post-game video or audio. With four guys, you cover twice as many games as the Courier, and you're providing much better content than it does.

    The overhead is low: a domain name and some equipment. They'd have to work long hours for basically no pay for a little while, but if it worked, they could expand staff and move to covering the big college sports in town. They don't pay print costs, they don't pay a large staff and they survive largely on local Web advertising. In a city like Louisville, there are plenty of small, grassroots companies that would love the cheap advertising. Once (if) it grew, there are plenty of big-time companies that would do it too. And it's carved in a niche that people in Louisville -- who almost all identify by where they went to high school anyway -- would eat up.

    If done right, it'd be a huge hit. And someone is going to figure that out sooner, rather than later.
     
  7. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    I read all your posts. I liked them. To the 35 year old. Do you have kids? Would you want to read about your kids in the paper? I suspect you are single and have no kids.
    I say let yahoo.com have the immediacy. Who is reading game stories at midnight and columns? What do you mean they need to find out right away? Shit if they are fans of teams they know the score. I say sell the ads in the print edition; keep the quality reporters; do not put any stories on the web except one graph for "breaking news" for pride's sake.

    And as far as my passion. If more people fought back against the morons who sold newspapers this bill of goods called the internet we wouldn't be in this position. At least I have a passionate take. My take would result in you keeping your jobs.

    No wonder papers are losing audience. They are firing all their fucking talent! Now call me a madman, go ahead.
     
  8. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    Do me a favor. Tomorrow night, find a column posted on espn.com, or yahoo.com, or sportsline.com. Find one that was written at night. Possibly off the MNF game. Doesn't matter. Watch it from midnight to 2 a.m. and look at the number of comments.

    Those people are the reason I have to work until 3 a.m. each night. People read the internet at midnight. People read game stories and columns at midnight. A helluva lot more than they're reading them at 6 a.m.
     
  9. Freelance Hack

    Freelance Hack Active Member

    Midnight in New York is 9 PM in Los Angeles.
     
  10. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Bingo. And the last NFL game ended for me about 8:30 p.m. tonight. You're telling me I should wait 12 or more hours to read anything about it, well, you've got another think comin' ...

    I don't care how great your story is. No way I'm buying that paper.
     
  11. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Hey Frederick, shouldn't you wait until tomorrow morning to print out this thread?
     
  12. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    OK guys and girls. Let's say papers were to just give up. Go Web only, which they probably will do. This is what management fxxxs will suggest and ultimately they will win over.
    There will be no more newsprint, no more ink, no more delivery people.
    And sooo many beats will be cut because those boring news stories will get no hits.

    You will have 2 reporters to cover cops stuff in major cities; one in medium cities. You will have one sports guy/girl to cover each professional team. No travel. The road games will be watched on TV with quotes coming from the teams.

    One high school reporter in big cities and small alike. You will have one sports copy editor max. No layout people. The web producer will put the story on the web. Maybe 2 photoraphers total; one news, one sports.
    So go ahead and go web only management fxxxxs. You will be able to slice your staff so much it's amazing.

    You who proclaim the internet the savior are correct. It's coming; papers will be web only.

    But I still say the newspaper had a market for the rest of humankind. The management fxxxs gave up on it and convinced the publishers. So it'll be coming soon enough. And staffs will be slashed so much it'll be unreal.

    And the laid off individuals would be able to get together and put together their own websites that will cover teams and communities much better than the newspapers. Get ready newspapers who go web only, talented freelances with better sources than the kids you keep on board for cheap were ultimately kick your ass.

    Newspapers going web only will be so great for people who have been laid off. As long as they can get credentialed, the laid off reporters will kick the shit out of the newspaper websites. Newspapers have had printing presses and the man behind them for so long. If they go web only, it's a new ballgame. So many reporters will be able to do a better job than the papers it will be funny to watch.
     
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