OT/The local newspaper is headed toward RIP status

[jlwdm]

I can't imagine watching the news on TV, getting a newspaper delivered or having a magazine subscription. The times have changed and these are not efficient ways to get news.

Jeff

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by jlwdm

I can't imagine watching the news on TV, getting a newspaper delivered or having a magazine subscription. The times have changed and these are not efficient ways to get news.

Jeff

Define “efficient.” And please offer an example.

[RWL2222]

Lee Enterprises epitomizes the evils of the current media dumpster fire. They bought the local paper and own 77 in total. Turn the papers into total junk. I had high hopes earlier when Warren Buffet got into papers as an investment in democracy, but then he decided to punt. The Bancrofts regret I think selling the WSJ to Rupert Murdoch. Thank God the NYT still going though its coverage is not always my choice. Last time I looked at the WashPo it didnt seem like Uncle Jeffy had done much. I basically gave up and just read PL now, even though I probably couldn’t keep up with 98% of you.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

I think journalism is alive and mostly 'well'. Places where you can find good, ACCURATE' news and information abounds. Just the form has changed..from a thing you hold in your hand to something on the inter web. The ease at which you can access these sites is astounding..so the audience 'can' be huge.

BUT, along with that are sites that do nothing but spew hate, division, lies and misinformation. If these were "in print" rags, they would be placed in the dustbin of history, or on the rack next to the grocery checkout..

"Queen Elizabeth had a affair with a turtle", type crap. BUT, welcome to the US Constitution, where lying on a web site via a 'news' program, is not only allowed but celebrated.

BUT 'good' news organizations, that can 'evolve' from a print newspaper to an 'online newspaper', will succeed. It's the number of online and 'on TV' 'rags' that bug me..

Like.

[Mr. Pink]

I hope this doesnt set off the politics alarm, because it isnt meant to, but Tucker Carlson did his first show on Twitter yesterday, and got millions of views. There's your future. Legacy media is dead.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

I hope this doesnt set off the politics alarm, because it isnt meant to, but Tucker Carlson did his first show on Twitter yesterday, and got millions of views. There's your future. Legacy media is dead.

Might but tuckie, twitter, various entertainment sites, are hardly 'journalism', nor 'news'. 'Media' for sure but not 'journalism'.

Lots of people come watch the animals in the zoo too...But that's not 'nature'.

[merckxman]

Also the big:
"The Los Angeles Times is cutting its newsroom staff, becoming the latest news organization to contract amid economic pressures brought on by advertising and print readership declines.

The Times is eliminating 74 positions in the newsroom, representing about 13% of the total."

[unterhausen]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Tucker Carlson did his first show on Twitter yesterday, and got millions of views.

My understanding is that Musk changed it so that if Twitter shows it to people but they don't watch it, it still counts as a view. Used to be if they showed it to you but you don't watch it they counted it as an "impression."
Most of Carlson's audience probably couldn't figure out how to sign up for a twitter account without having their fb account hacked. And I'm pretty sure you can't watch it if you don't have a twitter account. At least that's true for most people's content, Musk may have changed that too.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Might but tuckie, twitter, various entertainment sites, are hardly 'journalism', nor 'news'. 'Media' for sure but not 'journalism'.

Lots of people come watch the animals in the zoo too...But that's not 'nature'.

Well, we live in a time when a congressperson, in public, and on the record, insulted an award winning journalist by calling him a "so called journalist", so, who's to say. All I know is, cable news is dying and pretty much irrelevant, and that vacuum will be filled. Certain parties can try to play whack a mole, hopefully they don't totally succeed , because then it's 1984.

[bthornt]

I live in an "age-restricted" community in Florida. I walk my dog early in the morning, right around newspaper delivery time. Very, very few people in my neighborhood still get a newspaper, maybe a few additional people get the Sunday paper. I think that once you have lost this audience, people like me who grew up reading a newspaper (or, in my case even delivering the Hartford Courant), the writing is on the wall. I see the market for this method of news delivery getting smaller and smaller in the future.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

My understanding is that Musk changed it so that if Twitter shows it to people but they don't watch it, it still counts as a view. Used to be if they showed it to you but you don't watch it they counted it as an "impression."
Most of Carlson's audience probably couldn't figure out how to sign up for a twitter account without having their fb account hacked. And I'm pretty sure you can't watch it if you don't have a twitter account. At least that's true for most people's content, Musk may have changed that too.

Doesn't Twitter also have a problem that too many accounts are actually just bots? I wonder how many of those "views" were just bots.

[Mr. Pink]

Remember, and it still may be the case, going into your dentists office and finding a lot of a certain company's rags laid out for you to red? That was old school bots, in a way, because they were sent for free, along with very very cheap subscription rates with gifts as incentives to the average schmoe. The biz model was to get as many eyeballs on the real source of revenue, the ads. Now we're all counting down five, four, three, two, one on YouTube views to swat away ads.

[choke]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

BUT, along with that are sites that do nothing but spew hate, division, lies and misinformation. If these were "in print" rags, they would be placed in the dustbin of history, or on the rack next to the grocery checkout..

Lies, misinformation, etc. have been represented as news for as long as people have been around. It may have gotten worse in the last several years but it has always existed.....or maybe we just notice it more since the 24/7 news cycle came into being.

This is an excerpt from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell on June 11, 1807.

"To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day."

You can read the full letter here - https://founders.archives.gov/docume.../99-01-02-5737

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by bthornt

I live in an "age-restricted" community in Florida. I walk my dog early in the morning, right around newspaper delivery time. Very, very few people in my neighborhood still get a newspaper, maybe a few additional people get the Sunday paper. I think that once you have lost this audience, people like me who grew up reading a newspaper (or, in my case even delivering the Hartford Courant), the writing is on the wall. I see the market for this method of news delivery getting smaller and smaller in the future.

Before I quit my paper, I went to digital delivery and read it on my iPad. It was a lot cheaper than the print version, plus more environmentally friendly. Perhaps a lot of that is going on in your community.

[Ralph]

As I mentioned above, I now read the E version of local paper. Have decided I like this way better.