State of the newspaper biz

Indeed. Newspaper Row -- Park Row -- was just across the street from New York's City Hall.





From left to right, you have the The New York World Building (with the dome), the New York Tribune (with the Spire), and the New York Times.

Beautiful buildings, well located.

 

Well, among the reasons for this is most large (and even mid-sized) dailies went to larger printing presses that had more color capacity. These behemoths are assembled, and then a building is a built around them. Tough to do that in downtown areas.

Of course, those same newspapers took on plenty of debt to buy those printing presses, and that debt is like an albatross around their necks now ...

 

The brand is the paper and what's in it. Not a sign on a building.

And if this were really the case, then the hundreds of weekly/small dailies/mid-sized dailies that don't have a sign that lights up at night are in real trouble from a morale standpoint.

Again: This is the kind of thing that keeps big daily reporters and writers up at night. This site, too. Not the rest of the free world. And the big dailies have really been knocking out of the park for the last decade, haven't they?

And: you flew the damn planes.

 

Alma, fixing the light bulbs isn't going to fix the other major problems that newspapers have. i concede that.

But I'm not sure you understand brands or their value.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue. But if I worked in that building end for the Sun-Times, I'd be embarrassed that they hadn't changed the light bulb.

But then, I value brands & know how much hard work goes into building a brand. It shouldn't be pissed away.

 

Does advertising work? Do well-dressed people get better reactions from people they meet than poorly dressed people?

When you answer those two questions, you'll know why it's bad for a business to let their building look in disrepair.

 

Just try to get a job as a reporter with tons of body piercings and tattoos. Would you hire an otherwise qualified person if they looked like a freak?

 

Then I say: Play the percentages and just take the sign down. You'd never want, in a million thousand years, to ever suggest your reporters don't dress well or advertising doesn't work by a lightbulb being out.

You want to know the state of biz? This is the state of biz. Let's figure out the damn lightbulbs.

 

Good place to stop. Right there.

Back to the state of the biz.

 

We're adding products and pages, just not people.

 

I'm not sure if I should put this on this thread or the one about Barnes & Noble closing stores.

I just drove past this Borders, which you can see is on the corner of North & Halsted, in Chicago.



Two of the letter in "Borders" were out as was the entire line "Books Music Movies Cafe".

But I'm sure that's no reflection on how the company is doing.