Mass. daily becomes first to charge

The big boys can't charge unless they all agree to start to charge at the same exact moment. Otherwise, readers will just find other sources.

The little guys? They're trying to charge, but how long will that last?

With local news, some busybody can start a blog and cover city council meetings and local football. Then that person will likely find other locals who want to see "The TRUTH!!!!" printed, and thus begins a network of "correspondents" who find the time to produce a local rag online for nothing.

RIP, local daily.

 

Not if newspapers believed in their print product, beefed up the ad staffs and added pages instead of cutting them. The problem is newspapers have abandoned their print product and have given away their product for free on the web, cheapening that product. Yes, RIP, but it is ONLY because of the cheapening and abandoning of the actual print newspaper.

 

You're assuming readers as a whole care about the difference between what we would call "good journalism!", and the locals getting together to produce "Unbiased coverage!!!"

In these Podunk areas, local dude with a Mac and a digital camera can match what the local paper does. Add in a couple of other enthusiasts, and we're replaced. To them, what we do is pretty easy.

 

From a sports perspective, that wouldn't work with a small local paper. I know that I get e-mails telling me that people still love making scrap books and whatnot. Try making a scrapbook from a crappy blog with fuzzy handheld video or a shitty 250-word writeup that likely spells 3/4 of the names wrong.

Personally, I think the local paper and the community need each other. I don't see smaller papers being fazed out for a long, long time. I can't say that I have all the answers, but I'm glad that pay walls are starting to go up. You can't give away your product and expect to stay afloat.

 

Match them a few nights a week? Probably. Match them each and every day, including subjects which may not interest said Local Dude as much or take place at inconvenient hours? I'm not so sure.

They think they know, but they don't know.

 

Exactly. At the tiny papers, we aren't doing anything special. But we're doing stuff no one else feels like doing.