State of the business is dismal, as we know, and yet ...

I was just having a little fun with you.

 

OK, so here's something I'm curious about when it comes to website access.

Let's say you want to share the big feature you just wrote with your friends on social media. However, most of your friends don't have a subscription, don't live close enough to buy that paper, and don't have online access to the feature because the company has a strict paywall. What do you do?

 

Send each of them a copy of the paper, as gray areas aren't allowed.

 

Yeah, for some reason the agents think they're better off getting their contract numbers out to a national audience by going to national outlets. Agents do everything with a motive, and truth is often a bit down their list of motives.

So you are right. Those national outlets sure are the better place to follow a team to really know what's going on ... about one day a year, maybe two.

 

I do like the format some papers use: Where if you're accessing an article that's shared by a subscriber of the paper, you could read it for free. Of course if you're savvy, you can read the whole paper forever for free, just clicking links when they're Tweeted out by the newspaper's handle.

I want to say the LA Times does that. Maybe SF Chronicle? I don't know, it's one of the big West Coast papers.

 

You got me. Well played, friend.

 

Nail, I'd like you to meet Mr. Hammer.

 

And consultants. I don't know who gets the "credit" here, but the consultants reiterated to the publishers what publishers have always believed -- that anybody can write a story and the quality of work in the publishers' newspapers was worth nothing. People will not pay for this anymore; advertisers will not advertise anymore. Rather than beefing up their ad staffs and continuing to cover their communities so well that each daily newspaper is a "must read" publishers believed the consultants and readily gave away all those articles for free. LOL. See you on the unemployment line soon.

 

I know newspaper managers who quote consultants constantly – consultants from five or 10 years ago, by the way – instead of listening to suggestions from the here and now from the award-winning veterans on staff who continually do more with less.

It's the corporate mentality, even when the consultants were wrong.

 

Exactly. The consultants ruined the business and they STILL are making a ton of money consulting away. What a great life. To be a consultant. Big bucks for a bunch of inaccurate hot air, LOL. Publishers keep hiring them.

 

Absolutely wrong. Newspapers and magazines have never, ever made the bulk of their profits off subscriptions. It comes from advertising. You could definitely say not getting more money for online ads played a role, but the biggest reason is the decline in ads overall, and classifieds in particular. Wonder why obits are so damn expensive? Because papers need to charge out the ass for them.