Hope for print?

[Dick Whitman]

Paper books are on the rebound:

Paper is back: Why 'real' books are on the rebound - GeekWire

I can't imagine that there will be a correlation to journalism, where immediacy is vital. But it's interesting. This corresponds a little bit to my own reading habits, which have gravitated back to print more in the last few months, especially with books but also with newspapers and magazines.

 

[MisterCreosote]

No.

On a related note, I can't believe how many journalists have been circulating this meme lately:

That's fantastic, except those two statements are not the same at all. Not even close.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I feel like Web sites have become increasingly difficult to read. The Sports Illustrated site is absolutely impenetrable. Pop-up ads have become an increasing problem at most news sites, it seems, and more and more sites are either fully pay sites or limit your reads each month. There are also very few good newspaper apps. The New York Times is one, and I was a dedicated reader of the NYT "Today's Paper" app for a long time. But ultimately, I went back to the Chicago Tribune print edition, because I couldn't stand being so shut out of local news.

 

[Dick Whitman]

But, look. That's just me. Most people value "free" over almost anything else when it comes to their news consumption. I've also found that millennials like to severely limit their material possessions to just the basics, and a daily print newspaper cluttering up space certainly doesn't fit into that value system.

 

[User 11148]

I feel like Web sites have become increasingly difficult to read. The Sports Illustrated site is absolutely impenetrable. Pop-up ads have become an increasing problem at most news sites, it seems, and more and more sites are either fully pay sites or limit your reads each month. There are also very few good newspaper apps. The New York Times is one, and I was a dedicated reader of the NYT "Today's Paper" app for a long time. But ultimately, I went back to the Chicago Tribune print edition, because I couldn't stand being so shut out of local news.

I'm still steaming over the WaPo's playing me for a digital subscription. I like to read some of their columnists and blogs, but often I run up on the monthly limit. So when they emailed me a $20-a-year offer for a digital subscription, I decided I'd pony up. Turns out the subscription was to their digital product, not a digital subscription to their paper. Which means that, natch, I get all the stuff I didn't really want and almost none of the stuff I thought I was paying for.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I'm still steaming over the WaPo's playing me for a digital subscription. I like to read some of their columnists and blogs, but often I run up on the monthly limit. So when they emailed me a $20-a-year offer for a digital subscription, I decided I'd pony up. Turns out the subscription was to their digital product, not a digital subscription to their paper. Which means that, natch, I get all the stuff I didn't really want and almost none of the stuff I thought I was paying for.

The Times is the only one I've seen that does it right. It's the paper for that day, formatted as an app. It's pretty much perfect. The Chicago Tribune app is just PDFs of the day's paper, which I hate.

 

[User 11148]

The Times is the only one I've seen that does it right. It's the paper for that day, formatted as an app. It's pretty much perfect. The Chicago Tribune app is just PDFs of the day's paper, which I hate.

I don't know if this is true of all the McClatchey (sp?) papers or not, but the FW Star-Telegram's digital edition (which I get because I am a print subscriber) is very good. It looks just like the print version, but you can zoom in on whatever article/ad you want. And the navigation to/through sections is very good.

The WaPo's product was fine technologically ... it's just that I feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch re: the content provided.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I will never, ever buy a print newspaper again unless I want one for a keepsake from some huge event. I suspect I'm not alone on that.

And, yes, I'm fully aware that mentality would probably hasten print's demise, but it is entirely too cumbersome and inefficient for day-to-day news coverage.

 

[User 11148]

I will never, ever buy a print newspaper again unless I want one for a keepsake from some huge event. I suspect I'm not alone on that.

And, yes, I'm fully aware that mentality would probably hasten print's demise, but it is entirely too cumbersome and inefficient for day-to-day news coverage.

You never find yourself in an airport, or alone at mealtime, looking for something to read? There have been times I'd have paid $10 for an actual newspaper.

 

[Ace]

I will never, ever buy a print newspaper again unless I want one for a keepsake from some huge event. I suspect I'm not alone on that.

And, yes, I'm fully aware that mentality would probably hasten print's demise, but it is entirely too cumbersome and inefficient for day-to-day news coverage.

I think newspapers are easy to navigate (for the most part).

Newspaper websites may have much more information, but it's oftne hard to find or navigate. You don't know what you are missing, and it can be an extraordinarily frustrating experience via mobile.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think newspapers are easy to navigate (for the most part).

Newspaper websites may have much more information, but it's oftne hard to find or navigate. You don't know what you are missing, and it can be an extraordinarily frustrating experience via mobile.

I agree with Ace, particularly when it comes to agate. I'm actually tired of having to navigate one box score at a time. I like them all on one page. (I understand that newspapers are phasing them out. Sigh.) I like to bounce my eyes from the NASCAR field to the day's TV listings to the EPL standings to the NFL point spreads, all in about 30 seconds.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I think newspapers are easy to navigate (for the most part).

Newspaper websites may have much more information, but it's oftne hard to find or navigate. You don't know what you are missing, and it can be an extraordinarily frustrating experience via mobile.

That's why I use Google News almost exclusively. I also have the WaPo and USAT apps, which are fine, and a few email alert signups locally. Those more than do the trick. And they're all free.

 

[Ace]

That's why I use Google News almost exclusively. I also have the WaPo and USAT apps, which are fine, and a few email alert signups locally. Those more than do the trick. And they're all free.

Free? You're singlehandedly killing the industry, MisterCheapskate!

 

[I Should Coco]

@**** Whitman: Minor threadjack, but if you subscribe to the Chicago Tribune, do you mind saying how much it costs?

My in-laws — who quit as print subscribers, after more than 40 years of taking the paper, because of an extreme rate hike — were wooed back with a lower, "new subscriber" rate. And sure enough, the deal ran its course and now the Trib wants them to pay $600-plus a year for home delivery. That's just insane; the newstand price is 2/3rds that amount.

Every other newspaper I know tries to encourage subscriptions by offering deals that are XX percent off the newsstand price, rather than relying on the whims of single-issue purchases. The Chicago Tribune has been going the other way for several years because, I don't know, subscribers are too damn expensive to keep.

Rant over.

 

[Songbird]

 

[playthrough]

My 10-year-old is working on a (dreadfully ugly) papier mache project for school and I was dispatched last night to buy a newspaper for the newsprint. We didn't have any extra papers lying around because we haven't bought one in probably two years. My wife and I are both ex-newspaper writers and I suppose we could have dug into our many clips boxes from years ago, but I didn't want to see my best work chopped up on a papier mache skunk, though the irony in that would have been incredible.

Anyway, went out and bought the major metro and it was so thin I didn't think it would be enough newsprint to finish the project. I really don't know why they're still bothering to print, at least on weekdays.

 

[I Should Coco]

They're especially small on the first few weekdays of the month, after the ad staff has made (or more likely, not made) its monthly sales quota.

Hi Frederick!

 

[Bronco77]

We've got some new neighbors who moved in about a month ago, and the local paper is on their driveway in the morning. As far as I can tell, it's the first print subscription to be added in our neighborhood in a long time.

The caveat, of course, is that these new neighbors are both about 70.

 

[Kato]

One problem with print newspapers now is that people who have been used to the online model (even those who still subscribe to print) have, for nearly 15 years now, been seeking out the news that interests them — whether it's coverage of a specific sports team, a certain political slant, science news, etc.

For years, newspapers were the gatekeepers, the ones responsible for deciding what news was important to their readers and designing the paper accordingly. There were trusted editors and reporters who told their community what was relevant to them. Cover-to-cover readers, as a result, learned about a lot of things that they may not otherwise have been curious about.

The web has freed readers from having a news-master , for better or for worse.

I don't care about the big high school game that's taking up half of your sports front, but I do care about the local college team that was on the road and only got a brief? I can go online and find all the info I want about the team I care about and ignore the splashy cover story that a couple of people deemed to be the news of the day.

Now, at least at our paper, we're trying to figure out what makes those readers tick and feed them accordingly. It makes me a bit sad that we're no longer seen as the experts who know what's important to the community or who are so-well-informed in current events as to keep busy readers up to date with each morning edition. All of that stuff is readily available on our desktops and in our pockets.

So while print books may be making a comeback over the e-version, I'm not sure print newspapers will make such a resurgence.

 

[qtlaw]

We're so old school we get daily two local papers (one large metro; one a bit smaller, local) and the Sunday NYT. I hate all of the adds we end up getting but there's no substitute for opening the paper IMHO.