This guy nails it

The synopisis on Poynter.org offers this, which I believe is the thought about many readers concerning their newspaper:

Steve Outing was ready to drop the Boulder Daily Camera's print edition some time ago, but his wife resisted. "What put her over the edge -- and allowed me to prevail with my suggestion of abandoning print -- was the most recent bill. It included a significant price hike, just as we were noticing the paper and its coverage get thinner and thinner. Pay a lot more and get less? ...For a product that increasingly is less useful in light of online alternatives, there was no motivation to accept the price hike."

www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003783560


Increase the cost, reduce the product. Great job strategy!

 

Thankfully, that paper must be an abberation. No other papers would be that crazy.

 

"Charge more for less" is the stupider second cousin of "do more with less."

 

We can't even pretend to add something to make it seem fresh and new:

The Podunk Press -- now with new flavor crystals
The Podunk Press -- now with a new clean, fresh scent
The Podunk Press -- new advanced cleaning formula!

Maybe we could go with:

The Podunk Press -- Now more portable and with less news that just pisses you off anyway!

 

He: Hey, look how thin the paper is this morning!

She: Yeah, the local rag is getting rid of more of those writers who annoy us.

He: You mean, like, all of them?

 

A golf writer I deal with on some of my Florida events had the perfect analogy to this subject that -- despite all of our logical arguments -- keeps happening with alarming and self-defeating regularity.

He said that even though Ford is losing billions of dollars, they're not all of a sudden building shittier cars. Why are newspapers, which are still MAKING MONEY, putting out a shittier product?

Well, for those of you not fans of Ford, take that with a cluster of salt. But the larger point stands.

Rather, it screams.

 

In fact, Ford has bought out hundreds or even thousands of workers -- at more generous terms than most bought-out journalists get, by the way.

But that is in part because manufacturing of their automobiles has been mechanized. Robots and such, y'know? Newspaper ownership can only drool over the idea of mechanical workers who don't require paychecks and can work nonstop 24/7. For now, they simply try to replicate that by demanding ... blogs.

Robots are lucky, too, because they don't have memories or feelings or dreams or smarts, so when they're treated like tools by the bosses, they don't know any better.

 

I was in Michigan for business when Ford got rid of a third of its workforce -- at quite generous terms, as you've noted.

The point he made was -- and remains -- valid. You've got a company hemorraghing red ink and they're not responding by making their product worse.

Say what you will for an industry that reacts to change at the pace of a melting glacier, but at least the U.S. auto industry -- or what remains of it -- is trying to make better cars.

The same can't be said for the newspaper biz, which -- as I've been the 4,359th person to note here -- is still making money.

 

Two jokes and a serious comment:

Joke 1: At least you know this thread isn't about Mikey
Joke 2: Wait, I forgot it

Serious comment: Problem with the Ford analogy is that they're not axing willy-nilly; they (and the other Not As Big As They Used To Be 3) are trying to do in essence what we're trying to do -- cut stuff that's expensive and/or unpopular to focus on the things they do well. Ford isn't killing the F-150, but Chrysler is telling the Pacifica to not let the door hit it where the good Lord split it. If anything, it's their behind-the-curve thinking re: more fuel-efficient cars and CUVs that hurts them.

At this point in the game, and it's a slow evolution that's gotten me to this place in life, I believe that if fortifying the print edition is the equivalent of ramping up production of the Pacifica. That's not our best move. I hope there's always a dead-wood paper, but that's a fringe benefit, not the focus of our efforts. Or at least it should be.