The state of newspapers today

Frank, it's their first day.

 

Got a link?

 

As I said, I don't know the solution just yet, but I know the one thing that isn't working and that's giving away your product for free and totally devaluing it.

I'd like to see something like a large group of newspaper publishers band together and stop giving it away.

We know this much: That is killing us. Maybe the first step in finding the solution is knowing what definitely doesn't work for us.

 

This was offered on another thread. After further review, these posts still stand:

 

Second, but who's counting? Look, they did a nice job. But no real advertising, very little content. Some talented folks, but there just isn't the broad coverage that the Twin Cities dailies offer, nor is there the specialized, narrowly focused content of a blog. Just not a threat.

http://www.minnpost.com/

 

Anyway, it's been a really crappy day for me because of the state of my job today and I needed a place to sound off and rant. I'm going from a beat I loved to total uncertainty because I have to cover for someone who took a buyout, and I'm pretty well crushed today.

I'm going to hit the road to home now that I've filed my story but wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtful responses. When I get home I'll fire this thing up again and continue on.

 

A few things...

There's a sense of entitlement among the public that says the Internet should always and forever provide free information about any and all things. It's not that way with television. It's not that way with radio. For certain content, there's a fee. Newspapers, though, have been providing freebies, and people have come to expect that. If online media can't generate the ad dollars to produce quality news, something has to give. Either start charging for content or fix the advertising part.

As for the downfall of the daily newspaper, I think the long-term will be good. How people will receive news might change, but the demand will not die. People in Podunk, Virginia will still want to know what happened at the city council meeting and what happened on the football field. They might get RSS feeds from 10 sites and a daily podcast, but they're going to get the news one way or another.

 

Do the newspapers up there have paid or unpaid sites?

 

(They had one full day's work).
You think a newspaper could get off the ground under $2.5 million?

 

I didn't realize minnpost is a nonprofit (actually, this is the first I'm hearing about it) but it's an interesting and innovative business model.

It's a 501C-3 that also makes money from advertising. Gotta be better than being dependent on stockholders, then again what isn't?

From the website:

My main concern is if you're making money off donations, how do you control who donates? If the Republicans, for instance, decided to dump a bunch of money into your website, doesn't the content become suspect?

 

San Diego's had one for a few years.

 

So how do they keep donations from tainting their content? All that shit is public record.