@#@#$'s about to go down at USAT

We've stopped concentrating on putting out newspapers and everyone is rushing head over heels for podcats, blogs, tweets, online verbage and so forth. Well, fine, have it your way.

If journalism is dead, maybe its time for me to find something else to do with my time.

 

I agree Mark. I'm at the point I really don't care when the hammer comes down on me.

But I just don't get how newspapers think they are going to make any money going to the quick blips on phones? Like I said, somebody has to write the content. And kids can't do it.

Do you agree college and pro websites need to steal all the remaining bits of businesses from newspapers now? They can put out little tweets and bits better than the punk, green kids who will be doing the writing for newspapers.

Everybody on our staff tweets with the best of 'em. There are no advertisers sponsoring our tweets or anything.

 

I thought USA Today was the paper that stood a chance. Lots of short stories with one good long one per section.
Surprised they are giving up.
If people are unwilling to read ... why are books still selling?
I'll tell you one thing: Newspapers getting rid of good sports writers is not the way to save the business. What you are going to have once the veterans are all gone, is a bunch of kids putting out short stories and unreadable blogs that nobody is going to want to read or advertise for.
The people like yahoo and cbssportsline and fox etc., who have the good writers will be the only ones getting any advertising. Nobody's going to read that crap that the newspaper 10 dollar an hours are putting out. Cause they aren't going to get any breaking news. Coaches will just give it all to ESPN and its regional sites.

 

They've never been subtle about that.

But now they're shooting collagen and putting high-priced lipstick on the pig.

Running so many service-oriented articles to begin with, it's just a short
step to broad-scale whoring.

 

Find it borderline-useful for NFL. Wouldn't be caught near it, the remainder of the year.

 

They do mention sports being viable as some kind of separate business. Maybe they'll invest MORE in sports. (Although from what I've heard, they have plenty of people, but not necessarily the right people and they aren't used well, either.)

 

Nobody wants short news flashes to their phones. That's what tweets are for.

 

It was always targeted to hotels and the business traveler. Now most, if not everyone who travels on business is internet connected. The problem is now that the news section is competing against the NYT and Wash Post and Yahoos, Googles and Drudges, Biz against the WSJ, the Sports section against SI.com, ESPN.com and Yahoo and the Life section competing against every other website.
It's one thing to put down one section and read the next. But clicking to a better site is just as easy as clicking to another section on USA Today. I wonder if they realize that.

 

Used to subscribe -- yeah, one of those rare home subscribers! -- to induce daughters to read. They'd go for that purple section. Then they stopped reading it. Then we stopped the subscription. Me? I realized I could get sudokus from SO many other sources.

 

Heck, when I'm a hotel I request the local paper if that's an option. I'd much rather read about the town I'm staying in.

 

I will write down, on a piece of paper, the names of six people who work at USA Today right now.

If all six of them lose their jobs as a result of this reorganization, then it may contain the seeds of a good idea and could help the organization survive.

If all six of them keep their jobs, then it's all b.s. and they'll reap what they sow.

Hint = None of those names will be writers or copy editors.