Enquirer Layoffs: The Tally So Far

[paintmered]

Originally Posted by savafan

As for blogs, I primarily go to sports related blogs, but Drudge does tend to break a lot of news before it hits anywhere else.

Drudge simply consolidates major headlines and articles from around the intratubes. He doesn't create original content.

[Dom Heffner]

if 36% of the country doesn't have broadband

Are the people who don't have broadband someone you really want to target?

If you don't have the money to get internet service, you can't buy things advertisers sell. If you don't care for the internet, you're probably in a demographic not so much sought after by people buying ads.

The problem with the newspaper is it's old news before it hits my driveway.

I've seen human beings in action for a long time now, and if there is a way to make money with isomething they will.

If people are bailing on newspapers, there's good reason.

[savafan]

Originally Posted by paintmered

Drudge simply consolidates major headlines and articles from around the intratubes. He doesn't create original content.

That's typically the case, but he does periodically break stories also.

[Caveat Emperor]

Originally Posted by savafan

Depends on who you follow on Twitter, but, as an example, news of Michael Jackson's death hit Twitter and TMZ before any of the major news media had picked up the story. I got word on my cell phone before anything was ever reported on TV.

Most of the major news outlets were aware Michael Jackson was dead contemporaneously to the Twittering and blog-reports.

The difference between Twitter and CNN/MSNBC/FNC is that anyone can Twitter anything without a care in the world as to its veracity or accuracy. Major news outlets are required, as part of practicing good journalism, to confirm a story before they go on the air with it.

It'd be something that would be exceedingly easy to manipulate in the absence of hard-news sources. Just get a ton of people on a message board to all start Twittering "Will Ferrell Drug Overdose" at the same time, wait for it to move up to "trending topic" and watch the meltdown that ensues.

That's the reality of new media -- spongy standards of integrity, little by way of editorial review, and a need to be first as opposed to completely accurate. You can argue that the marketplace will sort it all out (bad sources get ignored, good sources gain readership), but without a print record to fall back on, does anyone even know how right TMZ has been on stuff in the past? Does anyone even care?

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Dom Heffner

Are the people who don't have broadband someone you really want to target?

That's a lot of people, it seems many think tough doody... I find that some what elitist IMO.

The folks who can't afford it need to be included, don't cha think?

[*BaseClogger*]

Originally Posted by westofyou

That's a lot of people, it seems many think tough doody... I find that some what elitist IMO.

The folks who can't afford it need to be included, don't cha think?

Not if you are a capitalist who wants to make a profit. This ain't socialism...

[BCubb2003]

Everything's a niche now, including the news on paper. Paper is a substantial niche, which makes it hard for a company to give up, but if it's no longer the size of a large metropolitan newspaper, what shape will it become?

[Roy Tucker]

I still love paper media and, like many here, still like the look and feel and all of the aspects of newspapers, magazines, books, etc. Curling up with a good book under the glow of a lamp is my most favorite thing in the world. But that's because that is what I'm used to. That's what I was raised on.

Probably the vast majority of folks under 30 don't read a newspaper anymore. But they still like their news just as much as I do. However, they are much more comfortable and used to getting it via their browser be it on a PC or an iPhone or some other electronic device.

I just think things like blogs, boards, Twitter, etc is mostly reconstituted news gathered from other more hard news sites (newspapers, networks, etc.) and they can't replace hard journalism. At least in their current form.

What worries me is that it looks to me like most newspapers are in a death spiral and I don't see them pulling back up. There will be an interregnum with a dearth of hard news. Market segments have crashed and burned before and newspapers are not immune. What fills it and when it happens, I don't know. If there is money to be made, something will.

What also worries me is that good journalism is based upon ethics which are non-binding. Anyone can publish whatever they want and its up to the paying public to discern if its crap or not.

I ramble.

[Eric_the_Red]

On the front page of today's paper is "A letter to readers" which attempts to explain the recent layoffs. In the letter it states: "Enquirer Media does not have an audience problem. Nearly two-thirds of the market will read our newspaper this week. It's the economy." And "No other local media company is responding to the changing information and marketing landscape like we are".

Yeah, the economy is so bad people can't afford to shell out 75 cents for the paper. Who do they think they are fooling with such rhetoric? Themselves?

[wolfboy]

Originally Posted by Eric_the_Red

On the front page of today's paper is "A letter to readers" which attempts to explain the recent layoffs. In the letter it states: "Enquirer Media does not have an audience problem. Nearly two-thirds of the market will read our newspaper this week. It's the economy." And "No other local media company is responding to the changing information and marketing landscape like we are".

Yeah, the economy is so bad people can't afford to shell out 75 cents for the paper. Who do they think they are fooling with such rhetoric? Themselves?

I think you are misinterpreting the issue. It isn't a matter of the reader shelling out 75 cents. It's an issue of their advertisers tightening the belt.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by westofyou

The folks who can't afford it need to be included, don't cha think?

Even if it's not profitable?

[bucksfan2]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I still love paper media and, like many here, still like the look and feel and all of the aspects of newspapers, magazines, books, etc. Curling up with a good book under the glow of a lamp is my most favorite thing in the world. But that's because that is what I'm used to. That's what I was raised on.

Probably the vast majority of folks under 30 don't read a newspaper anymore. But they still like their news just as much as I do. However, they are much more comfortable and used to getting it via their browser be it on a PC or an iPhone or some other electronic device.

I just think things like blogs, boards, Twitter, etc is mostly reconstituted news gathered from other more hard news sites (newspapers, networks, etc.) and they can't replace hard journalism. At least in their current form.

What worries me is that it looks to me like most newspapers are in a death spiral and I don't see them pulling back up. There will be an interregnum with a dearth of hard news. Market segments have crashed and burned before and newspapers are not immune. What fills it and when it happens, I don't know. If there is money to be made, something will.

What also worries me is that good journalism is based upon ethics which are non-binding. Anyone can publish whatever they want and its up to the paying public to discern if its crap or not.

I ramble.

Im 27.

Fortunately my wife survived the layoffs. Hopefully that will guarantee here until the end of the year without a furlough or another round of layoffs.

I think the demise of the newspaper is a little over blown. I know myself as well as my friends do read the paper, I just don't get up early enough to read the paper on weekdays. On weekends I will read the paper, just IMO the Enquirer is a pretty poor written paper. I will read the Sports as well as anything that peaks my interest. The problem is that most of the Business Section is poorly written and uninteresting. If the paper was written along the same lines of the Columbus Dispatch I would read it quite a bit more.

The problem with the papers is they haven't found the right medium to exist in. They have been very resistant to change and haven't made the changes until they have been forced upon them. IMO there will always be a newspaper, a one per town newspaper. How large the audience will be is debatable.

[redsmetz]

Originally Posted by bucksfan2

The problem with the papers is they haven't found the right medium to exist in. They have been very resistant to change and haven't made the changes until they have been forced upon them. IMO there will always be a newspaper, a one per town newspaper. How large the audience will be is debatable.

I think that's the key. If you look at other media down through the years, they've found ways to adapt. Look at radio which initially was the primary source of entertainment, not so much news, but it was there too. And then TV came along and the entertainment (comedy shows, dramas, etc.) dwindled. Really the only non-music or talk shows are done through public radio. And when TV came along, people thought movies would dwindle too. And even TV has had to adapt with the advent of VCR's and not DVD players, even shows and movies on computer.

One topic of discussion has been to move newspapers out of the "for profit" sector (particular where stockholders must be accounted for) and move towards a non-profit mode, something akin to a public trust. Editorial independence would be crucial and this model wouldn't necessarily not generate revenue, but it could give newspapers the ability to survive.

For a functioning democracy, I think a print media with investigative capabilities and in depth reporter is esstential. And some of that might be found on the web through blogging and online reporting, it's critical that "powers that be" (whether in government or business) know that someone is looking over their shoulders - and that must be accomplished across the political spectrum.

And there's still something nice about perusing a paper itself. I read lots of papers online and I'm always amazed some stories I catch in the print edition that I overlook online.

I've been a newpaper reader through all of my memory. When I was just a young kid, first learning to read, I always woke up first in my family and I would go outside and get the paper and sit on the porch step and read it. I wanted to be a writer, worked on my school paper in high school. I never became a professional writer, but I just was looking through a scrapbook my wife put together of a trip our family took ten years ago out west. We went to Albuquerque to help with a conference out there and I wrote a piece for the center's newspaper about the conference. That was in there and it was still cool to see my name on a byline.

[redsmetz]

I haven't had the chance to read this thoroughly (I need to do some "for profit" work!), but this blog looks interesting viz non-profit journalism.

http://journalismnonprofit.blogspot.com/

[*BaseClogger*]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I just think things like blogs, boards, Twitter, etc is mostly reconstituted news gathered from other more hard news sites (newspapers, networks, etc.) and they can't replace hard journalism. At least in their current form.

But without real news sources like newspapers those sites won't exist. That means there is a need for hard journalism in the market, which also means as long as newspapers make smart business decisions they have a way to make it through this...