The LA Times continues its death spiral

SF, I would have imagined a running gamer for the Web would have been somehow different than a print version.

 

Absolutely true. But I still hate 'em.

It basically just takes up space . . . until we can get quotes and actually construct a real story for the later edition.

I would rather read a five-inch topper, and then just come in with notes. Running gamers . . . eech.

 

I guess what I mean is, if you're spending three hours blogging or writing during the game then it seems stupid to leave for the locker room, return, write for the paper and then get back to the blog or Web connection an hour or 90 minutes later.

"I have to go downstairs now, but I'll be back later with a wrapup."

Leaving them hanging doesn't seem too smart. Postgame is when the blogosphere cranks up and we should be more active with ideas, thoughts, responses or whatever to bring people to sites.

 

Exactly.

 

Good point...

I see what you're saying, but I was trying to say that the running gamer on the web and the story that ran in the first print edition might be the same.

And then both would update, one for the web, one for later editions of print.

I guess one obvious factor is what level of sport. If it's the Big 6, then it's been pointed out that the big websites will give you live, updating GameCenters on every game, so why compete with that. Maybe blog personal observations that relate to the local team and leave the nuts and bolts to the companies that do it for a living, so to speak.

Problem with blogging, of course, is that if you're fully engaged in that, and it's one person covering, then preparing to write the game story as well might be tough double-duty. But good points being made.

 

At a time when newspaper companies should have been investing HEAVILY in the Internet, they were still sticking to their keep profit margins up model. This allowed for the already broadened media market (thanks cable TV) to become even more horizontal. Newspapers were going to lose market share regardless, but by not being more aggressive, by not buying Internet providers, search engines and the main cogs of the Internet, they became "just another info source" with a smaller scope.

 

What internet provider could a newspaper company afford to buy? It's more likely an internet provider would buy a media company (see AOL/TimeWarner) . . . which has no guarantee of success, either.

That deal was for $146 billion.

Despite their mega-profits of the past, even the biggest newspaper companies are worth only a few billion (and most are heavily leveraged). They cannot possibly buy a major internet provider, unless I'm missing something.

It's easy to accuse the newspaper companies of doing everything wrong in hindsight. But every one of us (or our parents) could have invested $1,000 in Microsoft or Apple when they were in their infancy. Every one of us uses Google. How many of us purchased stock in it at the outset?

Are we all idiots?

At the time newspaper execs should have been making all these incredibly prescient internet investments, computers were bulky boxes with a dial-up internet connection. Should their crystal balls also have envisioned wi-fi on every corner, broadband in every home and cell phones with internet access?

 

Why can't people accept this as a main reason? Because I don't think you want to, because you realize it's something that's not going to be fixed anytime soon.

We've got 18-year-olds who write in message-board shorthand -- period. That's their main mode of communication. And you're surprised they don't get down and dirty with page A7?

This has NOTHING to do with who's in office, or who's liberal, or who's radical. It has to do with what the Internet has done to our English language.

We cannot ignore it. It's not going away. But if you want to wish hollow wishes, you should wish we COULD ignore the Internet.

 

You ever read Rosecrans' Reds live blog when he was with the Post? The host left the party for a while to take care of business, but the party still went on. Same idea.

Look, if you've got an audience, they understand that you have to do your job at the end of the game. They're not going to all of a sudden leave because one person in the conversation -- the writer -- has to excuse himself to go to the locker room. Hell, if you're doing it well, they'll really want to stick around because they want to see what the players had to say as soon as the writer gets a chance to check in again. But these live blogs are like a little community within SJ -- we're all having a conversation about the game, about the team, but if one person can't make it, the party will still go on.

I think you're really overthinking this.

 

Politicizing the topic of the death of American newspapers does a great and disgusting disservice to the many great writers and editors who have lost their jobs.

This isn't about politics. This is about much more. And for someone to try to turn a subject that is intrinsically linked with the misfortune and suffering of tens of thousands of newspapers employees, or more, reveals a mindset as shallow, selfish and self-important as that of the supposedly idiotic masses he or she seeks to decry.

 

Sound philosophy, buck..