10 Newspaper Myths Deconstructed

[Shifty Squid]

Ran across this list today and was curious to hear people's thoughts on it. I thought it seemed thought-provoking, at the least. Apologies if it's old and I was too lazy to see it the last time.

http://www.informationarchitects.jp/10-newspaper-myths-deconstructed

 

[pallister]

No. 6, No. 6, No. 6, No. 6.

 

[MonitorLizard]

I agree with the part about increasing online ad revenue. The idea of making newspapers "wiki" seems like just about the dumbest thing ever.

 

[WaylonJennings]

We already had it out with this newspaper wiki guy on here regarding this list.

Bottom line: He's wrong about that.

 

[spaceman]

lots of luck getting buy-in from ad clients on a horizontal ad space waaaaaay below the fold.

 

[dooley_womack1]

We've had this before. Crock o' crap.

 

[cake in the rain]

I agree with much of the list...especially the one about opening archives.

 

[shotglass]

Myth #11: The author has his finger on the pulse of America.

Fact #11: I know the author of that piece:

 

[HejiraHenry]

I didn't see anything there that I violently disagreed with.

 

[Chi City 81]

Yeah, the tool who wrote this article, Oliver Reichenstein, was here about six months ago. He was made to look a fool fairly quickly and went away, IIRC.

 

[Satchel Pooch]

Yeah, the tool who wrote this article, Oliver Reichenstein, was here about six months ago. He was made to look a fool fairly quickly and went away, IIRC.

HA! That's funny; I forgot about that episode. I actually came across this article today doing research at work. Couldn't agree with No. 3 more.

 

[Oliver Reichenstein]

Yeah, the tool who wrote this article, Oliver Reichenstein, was here about six months ago. He was made to look a fool fairly quickly and went away, IIRC.

Funny perception of things. I am not a sportsjournalist, so, of course I left the forum after the discussion dried out. And tool? Tool of whom or what?

Anyway, in the mean time we launched our first wiki for a Swiss magazine.

http://www.dasmagazin.ch

DAS MAGAZIN (Engl. “The Magazine”) is a prestigious Swiss publication, comparable to the magazine of the New York Times. It has a weekly distribution of 770,000.

In the first 2 weeks we genererated 5 times the daily traffic that the same website used to have. The perception has been overwhelmingly good. The journalists are happy, the readers are happy. The competitor has changed his subscription strategy within 1 week after the launch. The search engine performance is flabergasting. The following graph shows organic google access since the relaunch:

As for the wiki part. We were very cautious and are slowly opening it up now. Advertisement is coming soon.

 

[Bob Cook]

Without commenting on the veracity of the list itself, let me ask this -- is what the newspaper business is doing now working?

The business desperately needs to open up to new ideas before it completely circles the drain. And open to new ideas does not mean, try to co-opt somebody else's new ideas to prop up print.

 

[MonitorLizard]

The question, Oliver, is whether the Swiss magazine is sacrificing quality and/or credibility in favor of page views and advertising dollars. If that's a sacrifice they're willing to make, then good for them, but I don't think it's one a lot of well-established American papers are going to make, at least not so transparently.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Without commenting on the veracity of the list itself, let me ask this -- is what the newspaper business is doing now working?

How do we know that the cures we've been trying for oh, 40 years, haven't been what's brought about this mess? And that more "cures" won't just make it worse?

I think we ought to start to consider that maybe we had it right to begin with when we covered hard news, before we decided that people were turned off by crime coverage and bored by local politics and instead want our newspapers to mirror their uninspiring existences. ****, man, when was the last time you had a craving to read about people just like you doing the same boring crap you already do every ******* day? Not me -- I want to read about people who have more interesting lives than I do, whether they are criminals or heroes; I do not want to read about people whose lives are even more banal than mine, fat cretins fixated on their TV sets, generic teenage twits who let their peers do their thinking for them. **** 'em. They're not going to read us no matter how stupid we make it. This wiki bull**** is just more of the same attempt to appeal to our readers' vanity that has never worked and never will. I don't care what you think, I care what you know.

 

[Bubbler]

Without commenting on the veracity of the list itself, let me ask this -- is what the newspaper business is doing now working?

How do we know that the cures we've been trying for oh, 40 years, haven't been what's brought about this mess? And that more "cures" won't just make it worse?

I think we ought to start to consider that maybe we had it right to begin with when we covered hard news, before we decided that people were turned off by crime coverage and bored by local politics and instead want our newspapers to mirror their uninspiring existences. ****, man, when was the last time you had a craving to read about people just like you doing the same boring crap you already do every ******* day? Not me -- I want to read about people who have more interesting lives than I do, whether they are criminals or heroes; I do not want to read about people whose lives are even more banal than mine, fat cretins fixated on their TV sets, generic teenage twits who let their peers do their thinking for them. **** 'em. They're not going to read us no matter how stupid we make it. This wiki bull**** is just more of the same attempt to appeal to our readers' vanity that has never worked and never will. I don't care what you think, I care what you know.

Round of applause from my neck of the woods.

 

[cake in the rain]

Without commenting on the veracity of the list itself, let me ask this -- is what the newspaper business is doing now working?

How do we know that the cures we've been trying for oh, 40 years, haven't been what's brought about this mess? And that more "cures" won't just make it worse?

I think we ought to start to consider that maybe we had it right to begin with when we covered hard news, before we decided that people were turned off by crime coverage and bored by local politics and instead want our newspapers to mirror their uninspiring existences. ****, man, when was the last time you had a craving to read about people just like you doing the same boring crap you already do every ******* day? Not me -- I want to read about people who have more interesting lives than I do, whether they are criminals or heroes; I do not want to read about people whose lives are even more banal than mine, fat cretins fixated on their TV sets, generic teenage twits who let their peers do their thinking for them. **** 'em. They're not going to read us no matter how stupid we make it. This wiki bull**** is just more of the same attempt to appeal to our readers' vanity that has never worked and never will. I don't care what you think, I care what you know.

but..but..but...that way of thinking won't win awards.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

No. 6, No. 6, No. 6, No. 6.

The publisher of my first newspaper told me that people are basically stupid and that they will take whatever you give them. He was an asshole, and a few years after I left he was divorced and had bad wreck that left him hobbled for life. I occasionally wonder if he still believes this.

 

[Oliver Reichenstein]

The question, Oliver, is whether the Swiss magazine is sacrificing quality and/or credibility in favor of page views and advertising dollars. If that's a sacrifice they're willing to make, then good for them, but I don't think it's one a lot of well-established American papers are going to make, at least not so transparently.

What are you talking about? Interaction helps them improving their quality. They get feedback and learn to understand their readers. Readers get heard and contribute to the magazine. After all, there are incredibly smart people reading this magazine; the idea that the journalists are the smartest people on any given topic is just plain silly. What I basically hear here is people being scared. Like this guy:

This wiki bull**** is just more of the same attempt to appeal to our readers' vanity that has never worked and never will.

This is nothing but hollow rhetoric. Wikipedia works very well, and keeps on working. It competes in many ways with the encyclopedia Britannica, but it is just read a million times more often.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Wikipedia works very well, and keeps on working. It competes in many ways with the encyclopedia Britannica, but it is just read a million times more often.

We are interested in accuracy, it's what we do. Good newspapers do not permit Wikipedia to be used as a resource. You can posture all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that any moron can write anything he wants on Wikipedia whether it's true or not. Lazy, ignorant people abound, and the fact that millions of them use Wikipedia does not mean we're going to give it any credibility.

You are trying to pimp your business, thus you are not a credible source on this.