David Byrne has more insight into our industry than most people running it

[Pendleton]

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2008/12/121808-no-more-news.html

 

[forever_town]

Where have we heard these ideas before? Oh, that's right, from nearly everybody who has any kind of opinion about the degradation of our industry.

He makes some good points, but it's not like we haven't heard them before. And it's not like he's got some great solutions that will magically solve all the problems that plague our industry.

 

[kleeda]

David Byrne needs to ... stop making sense.

 

[forever_town]

Same as it ever was ... same as it ever was ... same as it ... EVER ... was.

 

[Fredrick]

Bosses weren’t likely to thin their own ranks, and from their perspective, losing middle-level employees who had accrued decent salaries would help shore up the bottom line — temporarily, at least. New middle-level people could be hired at lower pay, or lower-level employees could be bumped up.

The thing is, it was the middle-level people who actually knew and essentially ran the businesses.

Yup, yup, yup.
I don't care if some of this is old. It's good whenever people write about the incompetent assholes who run the newspaper business. I loved his line bosses don't fire bosses. At least those bosses will be driven insane by the drivel written by, and unreliability, of the citizen journalists who work for free in the future.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Qu'est-que c'est?

 

[JayFarrar]

The Houston Chronicle is not alone. Almost every newspaper in the US, except the Times and the Wall Street Journal, has drastically cut, or in many cases entirely eliminated, their Washington contingent.

I wonder if McClatchy will send Byrne a nasty note?
The Times, at first, said McClatchy had made drastic cuts and it was the focus of the article. When it was pointed that they hadn't, the Times made some changes, but still couldn't keep from patting themselves on the back and didn't mention McClatchy, the DC bureau that generally got it right, was standing strong.

That being said, what Byrne wrote was hardly original and relied on local reporting to make his point. Just like many other blogs and such. I could read better opinion on the news business here.

 

[write then drink]

Why do feel compelled whenever somebody mentions a band or singer in any context to just post a line from one of his songs?

You really think it's funny or clever?

 

[kleeda]

Why do feel compelled whenever somebody mentions a band or singer in any context to just post a line from one of his songs?

You really think it's funny or clever?

It's more fun than ... burning down the house.

 

[dixiehack]

The Houston Chronicle is not alone. Almost every newspaper in the US, except the Times and the Wall Street Journal, has drastically cut, or in many cases entirely eliminated, their Washington contingent.

I wonder if McClatchy will send Byrne a nasty note?
The Times, at first, said McClatchy had made drastic cuts and it was the focus of the article. When it was pointed that they hadn't, the Times made some changes, but still couldn't keep from patting themselves on the back and didn't mention McClatchy, the DC bureau that generally got it right, was standing strong.

That being said, what Byrne wrote was hardly original and relied on local reporting to make his point. Just like many other blogs and such. I could read better opinion on the news business here.

The more third parties who make the case for newspapers, the better. We may know the sermon chapter and verse, but the idea is for the message to reach the majority of people who don't.

 

[Joe Williams]

I'm waiting for some folks here to tell David Byrne that he's being too negative and, by gosh, there still will be a need and an appetite for news and information, just in a different technology.

 

[kleeda]

I'm waiting for some folks here to tell David Byrne that he's being too negative and, by gosh, there still will be a need and an appetite for news and information, just in a different technology.

Thought that went without saying.

 

[BrianGriffin]

I think it's reassuring to read Byrne's observations because he is NOT of our industry. What I've found is that a minority of our population -- the same minority that might be inclined to read a newspaper -- also has a more profound understanding of what's happening in this industry than we may think. I've seen it locally. This is another example.

It is for this very reason that I think circulations in many major markets are declining at a more rapid rate now than one would have suspected. The idea is to sacrifice the traditional reader to attract non-readers. The net effect is that the non-readers are ignoring newspapers as they always have and the traditional readers are not only a little pissed, but also insulted, so they are being turned off by the industry more than the actual paper itself.

Again, I'm not passing along anything new here. The point is simply that Byrne's blog post is another example -- and I've seen many -- that the reading public (emphasis on READING public) very much knows what's going on here. That's both encouraging and frightening.

 

[Joe Williams]

It is for this very reason that I think circulations in many major markets are declining at a more rapid rate now than one would have suspected. The idea is to sacrifice the traditional reader to attract non-readers. The net effect is that the non-readers are ignoring newspapers as they always have and the traditional readers are not only a little pissed, but also insulted, so they are being turned off by the industry more than the actual paper itself.

I'm with you, Brian. I've said it for years, that newspaers are like breweries that take Joe Sixpack for granted, while courting the wine cooler crowd. Do that often enough, in numerous ways (content, political leanings, redesigns upon redesigns, purging of familiar bylines) and you are more likely to lose Joe Sixpack than to add his worth (plus) in new customers.

Yeah, yeah, traditional newspaper readers are "dying." That's too simplistic. People are living longer than ever, and I believe most people don't really become potential newspaper customers until they marry, have families, buy houses, care about the schools in their neighborhoods and develop that to-the-doorstep routine at age 30 or beyond. But advertisers covet kids and newspapers covet advertisers, so editors don't think twice about alienating the 45-year-olds who might be inclined to buy their paper for another 40 years.

 

[BrianGriffin]

It is for this very reason that I think circulations in many major markets are declining at a more rapid rate now than one would have suspected. The idea is to sacrifice the traditional reader to attract non-readers. The net effect is that the non-readers are ignoring newspapers as they always have and the traditional readers are not only a little pissed, but also insulted, so they are being turned off by the industry more than the actual paper itself.

I'm with you, Brian. I've said it for years, that newspaers are like breweries that take Joe Sixpack for granted, while courting the wine cooler crowd. Do that often enough, in numerous ways (content, political leanings, redesigns upon redesigns, purging of familiar bylines) and you are more likely to lose Joe Sixpack than to add his worth (plus) in new customers.

Yeah, yeah, traditional newspaper readers are "dying." That's too simplistic. People are living longer than ever, and I believe most people don't really become potential newspaper customers until they marry, have families, buy houses, care about the schools in their neighborhoods and develop that to-the-doorstep routine at age 30 or beyond. But advertisers covet kids and newspapers covet advertisers, so editors don't think twice about alienating the 45-year-olds who might be inclined to buy their paper for another 40 years.

Do you find that sometimes you can be amazed by how much some people "know" about our industry? Not that they can talk shop, but if you are a learned person in politics, business, psychology, etc., you can read a newspaper and start figuring out motivations behind what's there. And I'm amazed how often these observatiosn are dead-on. Of course, we tend to forget these observations and remember the observations that are WAY off base and use those to fuel our "public doesn't understand us" arguments.

So when you downsize, repackage and pretty up something to try to fool the reader to thinking he's getting what he pays for, this core of readers recognizes that strategy. Part of it, as Byrne says, is they've seen it in other industries, sometimes their own.

Here's the thing, and forgive me if this point is being pounded to a fault: The people with the curiosity and observational talents to figure these things out do things like READ NEWSPAPERS to contribute to those observational skills and to satsify that curiosity. So the last thing you want to do is try to "trick" newspaper readers with what are, essentially, marketing tricks (example? The Red Eye. Need I say more?).

 

[TopOfTheCircle]

Same as it ever was ... same as it ever was ... same as it ... EVER ... was.

You might ask yourself ... how did I get here?

 

[Joe Williams]

Same as it ever was ... same as it ever was ... same as it ... EVER ... was.

You might ask yourself ... how did I get here?

write then drink, we're ready for your close-up...

 

[Starman]

Why stay in college, why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time.
Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard
I can't write nothing at all.
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around.

 

[Big Circus]

They say they don't need money
They're living on nuts and berries
They say animals don't worry
You know animals are hairy?
They think they know what's best
They're making a fool of us
They ought to be more careful
They're setting a bad example


What, that doesn't apply here?

 

[dooley_womack1]

write then drink sounds like he could become a psycho killer