Papers Pulling Next Week's Doonesbury

Understand, but really not much different than Delonas and Trudeau.

 

Agree. I would see nothing wrong with running Doonesbury on an opinion page on a daily basis. It's political humor.

They're both light years away from Family Circus, the Lockhorns, or Garfield.

 

YankeesFan: I think what you mean is the "three largest circulation papers" in the country rather than the "top three."

If you go 4-20 in circulation, I bet your find almost all of them have comics, and some of them are highly respected as well.

 

My mother read the news section and the comics of the local top-100 paper every single day. When the news section started thinning out, she got frustrated. When they cut two of her favorite comic strips, she canceled.

 

I worded it that way earlier. Wasn't trying to say anything differently. (Though, the Times & the Journal are also the best papers in the county. Folks at the Washington Post might think they belong in the conversation, but they're on the outside looking in. The Trib, LA Times, and the Globe don't have a case. Sadly.)

Respected in what way? Are they the number one news source in their community?

Are they respected for their original reporting and features? If you read one of these papers, are you fully informed on the events of the world, nation, and community?

My old boss watched no TV. None. Didn't own one. He read the WSJ Monday through Friday. (I forget now what he read on Saturday. Some weekly business publication. Maybe Crains. Damn.) And he read the Sunday Times.

Do you think he needed to consume any more news that that? About the only thing he was lacking was pop culture info. And sports, I guess.

Oh, and Garfield.

I've subscribed to big city papers, and suburban ones. Lots of AP copy. Lots of newswire stories. The Houston Chronicle's best stories were usually from the new York Times. The Chicago Tribune runs LA Times feature stories. They don't even localize them.

Do I "respect" the Trib? Compared to the Sun-Times, maybe. As a news source? As a must read? Not at all.

I read the Times online every day. If I'm bored, I look at the Trib's website. I rarely find even a single story worth clicking on. Sometimes I'll read a restaurant review, but even there, Eater.com, Timeout Chicago, the Reader, and even the Sun-Times offer better coverage.

Now, maybe the comics aren't an issue. But, they do nothing for the news value of a paper. They don't earn the paper any "respect".

 

Boy, you are spiraling into an argument you don't really want to be in right now. I'm going to let a different employee of an unviable newspaper make that argument.

 

I stopped reading the comics when Gary Larson put down his pencil.

 

I think Y_F is saying that Garfield craps all over the Plain Dealer.

 

Why? Newspapers are failing. And, their response has been to cut original reporting.

They keep the funnies. They keep Dear Abby, the horoscope, jumble, and soduku. Is that working for them?

Then, they produce their own free dailies (tbt*, Redeye, etc.), that offer just the fluff. So, they cannibalize their own offerings.

Should the idea of what a current daily newspaper is be reexamined?

I read stories in the Times everyday that are interesting, and could be replicated by papers across the country.

Now, is that not worth it? Does you readership just want their Olive Garden reviews, and pictures of parades?

To me, that's a death trap. It's just going to send real consumers of news to other sources.

And, if you're going to shrink anyway, is it more valuable to keep the consumers of news, or the person who gets a daily chuckle from Marmaduke?

 

Dude,

There are plenty of boneheaded moves, bad choices and missed opportunities in newspapers today, but, like Marmaduke, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

 

Maybe I'm dead wrong. I'd be ok with that.

But, other than your point about exposing young readers to the newspaper (which I do agree with), I haven't heard a real reason why I'm wrong.

I'm getting defensiveness. I'm getting instinctive, emotional replies, not clear replies explaining the value of the funnies -- or Dear Abby, the horoscope, soduko, and jumble.

Now, maybe granny will drop the paper if she can no longer get Heloise's Helpful Hints, or find out how Percy Ross is going to give away his money.

But, maybe you would have been better off cutting back on the fluff, and concentrating on -- I don't know -- the news.

I mean, seriously, I count maybe five good papers in the country -- Times, Journal, Post... OK, maybe three. Maybe throw in IBD.

What else? The LA Times? The Globe? The Trib? Seriously?

Not the Chronicle or the Tampa Tribune. I used to travel to Cleveland all the time. Is the Plain Dealer a good newspaper? In what way?

If I'm in the executive lounge at the airport I Cleveland, I'm grabbing the Times, Journal, or USAT before I grab the Plain Dealer. Which one would you grab?

 

You don't live in Cleveland. That the Plain Dealer would hold less of interest to you is not surprising.