So a newspaper goes belly-up...

Read a story about a Conn. lawmaker hoping to bail out some Journal Register papers in the Nutmeg State, but then I wondered, what would happen if they do just shrivel up and go away.

I remember when Montgomery Ward folded, and when Mervyns closed in town, within a few months Kohl's showed up and seems to be doing okay.

I've got to think a new enterprise will fill the void left by failed newspaper, unsaddled by debt or a legacy of bad decisions, or a corporate culture that stifles growth, I figure someone will find a way to fill that niche.

Am I wrong?

 

You are correct in the long run, bu maybe not the short one.

Who knows how long it will take to fill the vacuum, but it will eventually be filled.

 

... if the marketplace decides it needs something to fill it.

Right now, and I mean right now, American newspapers big and small need to be doing a better job of explaining to the public what they do, why they do it, and the role they play in a democratic society ... and then actually do what they say they do. Because, frankly, fewer and fewer people understand the big picture ... or care to understand it.

Just speaking as a guy who spent 20 years in the newspaper business and 40 years as a newspaper reader, but left the business and now finds very little reason to pick up the daily paper anymore.

 

Simply put, people don't give a damn about journalists any more.

 

No, but why should they. I don't buy a coffee maker because I care about the guy who made it. I buy it because it provides me with something I need.
Hack's right. We need to do a better job making our case to people about why the service we provide matters. Or on focusing our efforts on selling our service to the people who already know why it matters. As an industry, we do a terrible job of marketing ourselves. As a result, everyone under the age of 40 thinks they get their news "from the Internet."

 

Does AP and Reuters charge Internet-only operations more than newspaper Web sites for service?

 

Just read the local paper for the first time in a few months. It was thick with plenty of post-Christmas ads, but the first thing I noticed is that it looks like it shrunk another inch in width, really noticeable when you like to spread it out on a kitchen table to read, the thing had very little meat to it, nothing to make me linger and maybe you know - notice some ads, it seemed like such a waste, considering the amount of time and effort put into getting a daily paper out. Why not pump it up 10 percent and make that product worth something? The online product isn't much better.

 

Thinking like that will get your ass fired, Dan.