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!

Newspapers are a business, not a library

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by flexmaster33, Sep 1, 2018.

  1. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    A decade and a half ago, a local company used to photocopy engagement and wedding announcements from our newspaper, laminate them into a card and mail them the people getting married (which, of course, contained a plug for the company).

    I met my wife in the newsroom. We get the card *at work*. Needless to say, the company attorneys saw it and I'm pretty certain that was the last time that local company did such.

    My wife - who amazingly has managed to work at the same small paper for nearly a quarter-century - covers religious topics for the local community paper (which means a lot of feature stories about high school mission trips and parish festivals). When she writes about a local church, one of the biggest things she has to fight is well-meaning people (often older people) who don't understand copyright copy-pasting her stories onto their websites or Facebook feeds. She's had to send several tactfully-worded emails asking them to be taken down and instead replaced with a link to the newspaper's website.
     
  2. SoloFlyer

    SoloFlyer Well-Known Member

    Those examples are fine and all, but where are you going to go that to learn that city funds have been misappropriated and the city manager has been suspended? Or that the local police chief is under FBI investigation for accepting bribes? Or that the local school board has held secret meetings to push out a couple notable members of the administration?
     
    flexmaster33 and 2muchcoffeeman like this.
  3. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    Don't we all?
     
  4. Central-KY-Kid

    Central-KY-Kid Well-Known Member

    Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see some investigative or hard-hitting news. And I'll pick it up and buy the print edition and read it.

    But that type of journalism AIN'T happening at my local rag and by many newspapers around me. No one has the staffing for it. No one has the time when you force photographers to take their own photos (even standalone center pieces) or type in obituaries.

    There aren't very many Carl Bernsteins and Bob Woodwards hanging around non-metro papers.
     
  5. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    So... what's there do to?
     
  6. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Probably tighten the paywalls. And that still probably isn't going to help, because there are a lot of people out there who are not going to pay for something online. If they've been looking for news online and suddenly that wall is put up, they'll just refuse and write off that particular entity.
     
    Central-KY-Kid likes this.
  7. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    They then have no problem reading garbage on Facebook, all because so they can read it, for free, on a garbage platform.
     
  8. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    OK, yeah. That's about the size of it. How do you think we have the president we have now? I didn't say it was desirable; it just is.
     
    Tweener likes this.
  9. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    You're damn right about that.
     
  10. SoloFlyer

    SoloFlyer Well-Known Member

    That's a bullshit excuse. It really is. Every paper has staffing issues and there are plenty of papers still producing quality work. Just look at the work done by the under 30,000 circulation papers that are recognized with APSE awards. And that's just sports.

    If you have one person covering the local school district, you have enough staff to do legitimate news about that school board. Even if that one person is covering 5 school districts, they'll have enough time. The newspapers that are hurt most by staff cuts are the ones who still want to be stenographers. Stop publishing school press releases and do your own work. Stop being led by the hand, get out of the office, and find photographs that are worthy of being standalone centerpieces.

    I don't mean to take this out on you, but the mindset of "we're too busy to do real news" bugs the hell out of me.

    It shouldn't matter how many people are in the newsroom. Report the fucking news.
     
  11. Slacker

    Slacker Well-Known Member

    Yeah, work smarter, not harder! GODDAMMIT, NOW!!!
     
  12. Central-KY-Kid

    Central-KY-Kid Well-Known Member

    Not bothered by your response at all, @SoloFlyer . Agree with it.

    One of my former bosses, who I used to have a good relationship with, is taking care of crime/courts/police now. Everything his basically handed to him and he does no background research at all.

    The followups on the victims are always formulaic: "Spring Street is lined by two-story houses with picket fences. It's a place where nobody thinks anything horrible could happen ..."

    (And then write about how something bad happened to somebody good*)

    *If he had done his research, he'd realize some of these victims were past perpetrators.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page