The Ghost of Newspapers Future:Republic gets "simple"

A great article on "the future of journalism" and how it is going over with the public and the rank and file in Phoenix.
www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-06-07/news/it-s-a-wrap/full

 

It's going over, all right... the cliff.

I guarantee ya if enough subscribers bitch, they'll figure out a way to restore those missing Monday pages. It's a shame too... it's shocking considering the Republic is a Gannett paper, but it actually has one of the biggest sports sections in the country (sometimes 16-20 pages on weekdays). That's rare for a Gannett-run section.

 

she's a former journalist who became a blogger. why would her opinion shock anyone?

 

The chap who talked about how newspapers need to become a national consortium was on the right track.

 

It may be the smartest idea there is on preventing newspaper deaths. It makes way too much sense.

 

It's amazing how many of their top people have left.

 

My kid's school PTA newsletter is bigger than the Monday Republic these days. Seriously, they may want to consider publishing 6 days a week instead of trying to sell this as a "benefit" to readers.

 

No, they won't.

They took the opinions of a focus group and a smattering of their readers, screwed up a day's section and will keep it that way until the public either gives up bitching or continues to go to the Web for information.

Either way, they will keep it and try to justify it and let things get quiet. The public doesn't have the balls to keep pressing on to affect a change, unless it involves the comics or TV listings or maybe Dear Abby's column or the bridge column being moved, reduced in size or eliminated.

If newspaper managers would quit fucking around with stupid ideas and concentrate on good journalism in print and on the Web, they might see some positive results.

 

cameltoe is right.

 

I agree with everything except the public not having the balls. It's that the public no longer has any reason to care.

I certainly have no sentimental attachment to the paper and can now get my news from other sources online. I think the changes were incredibly foolish, but they've already devalued the product to the point where screwing it up even more just doesn't bother me anymore.

 

Well, it's Phoenix.

A few years ago I was on one of those in-house committees that was studying something. Someone was praising some pages that in my opinion were overly formatted, making the day's news conform to a template, and I said, "I mean, nobody would try that in the metro section because that's serious news, but apparently it's fine for sports and features." You guessed it, the next week I was on vacation in Arizona and indeed someone was stupid enough to try that in the metro section, two open pages split in half, a formatted half-page for each zone regardless of whether a zone had anything remotely interesting that day or had more interesting stuff than a half-page could possibly contain. So nothing they do surprises me.

 

It's disappointing because their sports section at least seems to be doing it right, I don't understand why it's so difficult for the rest of the paper to get their act together.

Their daily page 2 packages seem interesting and something every paper should/would be doing if they had the staffing for it, but wait, that would involve not offering buyouts. Not to mention I think most papers would like to have 16 page sections as well.

If anything, that section is a good model for how to do it right I think but it's a shame that has gotten lost because the rest of the paper apparently don't have its head out of its ass.

This ties into the State of the Industry thread but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to become more niche, whether its sports, features, etc. It's not like the market for sports news has gotten smaller, why don't you seem more publications starting up like the Baltimore Pressbox with companion websites? Most people have disdain for their local paper because of their political leanings (left or right) so why not just completely eliminate that from the equation? Then you're not immediately cutting your audience in half. Granted your potential audience is smaller but also easier for advertisers to identify and target. Plus do your blogs, video, audio, chats, etc. online.

If you can't make money with that model then I don't see where there's any future in the print market for a standard newspaper's sports section. Eventually it will be ESPN and SI and a local papers covering HS sports. Kill me.