How is your Local Paper?

[sauronsfinger]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081216/detroit_ ... .html?.v=8

It was announced here today that daily newspapers are going to be a thing of the past in south-east Michigan. Although there will be an online version each day, the only home delivery of papers will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Newsstand copies will be available on the other days but many inside experts predicted that will be a short lived experience as the vast majority of papers are now delivered to homes.

I am someone who loves to wake up at 6 am and find the Free Press on my doorstep. I love to read the paper from cover to cover and have done so for all my life. Now that I am retired, I can even enjoy completing the daily crossword puzzles that I never had time to even look at when working.

I see that the Christian Science Monitor - a really superb paper - is now only available online and no longer even prints an edition for sale. Progress.

They say that younger people under 35 just do not read the paper and never got into the habit. They say that home delivery is now just too expensive as now its almost exclusively done by adults in cars and the old newspaper boy is a thing of the past.

So how is the status of the daily paper in your town? Do you read it? Is it important to you?

[Griffon64]

I work for it. It is super important to me.

I could pontificate about the short-sighted idiocy of people who do not interest themselves in local news and support the local free press, and how that will bite us all in the butt with free-market, overly capitalistic, profit-first, people-last teeth down the line, but, well, I won't. I'm at work

My paper does a fair job of keeping the local government and some of the biggest, most polluting, least caring about the communities industries honest. They catch some flack for it, but honestly, I'm very glad they're here to do it. I can only hope they survive and continue doing so, whether I work for them or not.

Without the free press watching, there would be even more of the economic scandals that's shaking away at the roots of comfortable America right now, I'd say.

But no, watching Family Guy and laughing at YouTube videos before posting idiotic comments about them seem to be more important to large segments of the young crowd nowadays.

By the way, I'm under 35 and I read the local paper daily. Some of the young 'uns have a shred of sense

[Primula Baggins]

I've been getting and reading the local paper, wherever I was, since I went away to college. Ours is in good shape, relatively speaking. But I know from reading the web site associated with it (when I miss an article or something) that the web is no substitute for real local coverage. The physical paper is more comprehensive and less ephemeral. We save newspapers describing momentous events and the papers from the days our kids were born. (Not a lot of papers; 9/11 was the most recent until Obama won the election.) What will people save now?

There's also something about spreading a real physical newspaper out on the table and seeing eight or ten headlines, with the accompanying stories and pictures, all at once. That's more fun than seeing a list of stories and having to click from one to the next, wait for the ads to load, etc.

Also, several people can read it at once while nibbling toast and making pronouncements. Reading a paper on the Internet is solitary.

[solicitr]

It's not just profit, Griff, it's credibility. All paper papers suffer when the New York Times or WaPo or The Nation etc etc have well-publicized fraud scandals, or are implicated in a quasi-criminal coverup (Anthony Pellicano), or are caught publishing doctored photographs (Reuters). Bloggers and "new media" are in the forefront of exposing these things and making the dead-tree press look bad, and the harm traditional media suffer is at least partly their own fault, just like GM's is.

But there are problems esp. for local papers that go beyond the problems of of print media generally. Local TV news is also suffering a steep ratings decline- largely, I suspect, because our transitory society just doesn't care about local issues as much. "Civic pride" seems to be heading the way of the dodo. Most people get their news now from cable, or the internet, both of which have an almost exclusively national focus.

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr - if your observations are correct - it may help explain why so many of the sparsely populated states scored so highly on that USA/Justice Department measurement of government corruption. The absence of any local paper in the hinterlands like Alaska and North Dakota informing the citizenry would seem part of a recipe for inviting local corruption.

[Primula Baggins]

That's a good point, sf.

soli, I think a big contributor to the decline of local TV news is that most people don't get home from work at 5 PM any more. And they're in bed by 11, because they're tired. Maybe they do care about local issues, but there's no local news on when they want to see it.

Another factor: I watch no television news, local or national, except for live coverage of things I care about, because I've been spoiled by the Internet. The Internet is a much better substitute for TV news than for newspapers. I can ignore the ads—they don't run for three or four minutes in a row, preempting the news I'm trying to watch, while I fidget. I can read or watch the stories that are important to me without sitting through breathless celebrity coverage or other moronic time-wasting. And there's no banter.

[Maria]

We quit subscribing to our local paper a year and a half ago when they started putting removable ad stickers on top of the stories on the front page. We complained and the people at the paper said they'd get our carrier to not put the stickers on our copy, but the papers always arrived with stickers.

So, we cancelled our subscription. I don't miss it, except when I need paper for the bottom of my bird cage. The online version is good enough for reading purposes.

[Griffon64]

It's not just profit, Griff, it's credibility. All paper papers suffer when the New York Times or WaPo or The Nation etc etc have well-publicized fraud scandals, or are implicated in a quasi-criminal coverup (Anthony Pellicano), or are caught publishing doctored photographs (Reuters).

Isn't it exactly about profit, though? The driver for fraud scandals, cover-ups, doctored photos - doesn't that all, in one way or another, boil down to profit? Money being the root of many evils and all that? There's no sense in throwing away your good name for nothing. But people do it for money all the time.

Bloggers and "new media" are in the forefront of exposing these things and making the dead-tree press look bad, and the harm traditional media suffer is at least partly their own fault, just like GM's is.

Well - big corporations can be pretty corrupt across the board. Not all of them, naturally, but it is easier to hide some forms of corruption in layers, and small companies mostly have less layers. I don't think it is a specifically newspaper thing, corruption. Nor do I think bloggers and "new media" is a medium that suffers any less from credibility issues. It is all about employing enough critical thinking to sort the wheat from the chaff, and critical thinking seems to be headed to dodo-land in large swathes of the population as well.

I'm less concerned with the big "name" papers than I am with local papers. I think local papers fill an important role, and the "name" publications are probably too many, too many competing to bring the same global and national news to the same audience. Global news is just as important, and can have more of an impact on lives than little local scandals, of course. But local papers fill an important role keeping the feet of the local politicians in the fire and looking out for the local communities. Because sometimes the things that happen locally affect you more than the national things.

Local TV news is also suffering a steep ratings decline- largely, I suspect, because our transitory society just doesn't care about local issues as much. "Civic pride" seems to be heading the way of the dodo. Most people get their news now from cable, or the internet, both of which have an almost exclusively national focus.

Well, yes. Exactly. Yet, local issues are often more important than national issues as far as your day to day living is concerned, and it is rather short-sighted that people do not care as much about them. In my opinion.

soli, I think a big contributor to the decline of local TV news is that most people don't get home from work at 5 PM any more. And they're in bed by 11, because they're tired. Maybe they do care about local issues, but there's no local news on when they want to see it.

That's a good point. I only watch sport on TV, because I dislike ads, and I dislike breathless talking heads, or really any kind of talking head. I'd rather read it - at my own pace, being able to scan, skip or re-read. The internet is pretty useful for that. Even with sport I like watching it muted ( unless Vin Scully is calling a Dodger game ) because I get tired of the commentators bantering and trying to be funny instead of calling the game, after a while.

But anyway, the other half of the point - people are too tired and often too stuffed with information when they get home. Modern society is a real cognitive overload. Too much information flying around, too fast a pace, too little time to think about things and digest them properly. I like reading the local paper in the morning, when I can still think a little about what I'm reading. Of course, I'm always feeling the pressure to be out the door and into the rat race, too.

Now, if people slowed down and thought about it, maybe there would be a "numbers" move towards a more rewarding lifestyle. For the life of me I don't know why I'm spinning my hamster wheel as fast as I can, maybe hoping for an extra dozen pellets of hamster chow in my dish at the end of it, so the suits can buy another flashy car or material token of excess of your choice. OK - I do know why - because I'll be living under a bridge in a refrigerator box with no health care if I don't. It just seems to me like modern society is beneficial to the few, not the many, and that seems a weird kind of a balance. Last time that happened, I guess some people thought about applications for a heavy metal blade falling from a bit of a height.

Anyway. Just ranting and rambling! If people paid real attention and thought to the article in the paper about how little free time people have anymore, and so on.

We quit subscribing to our local paper a year and a half ago when they started putting removable ad stickers on top of the stories on the front page. We complained and the people at the paper said they'd get our carrier to not put the stickers on our copy, but the papers always arrived with stickers.

So, we cancelled our subscription. I don't miss it, except when I need paper for the bottom of my bird cage. The online version is good enough for reading purposes.

My local paper do those sticky ads too. People dislike them. I dislike them too, and I work at the local paper so they help pay my salary. Every time I want to complain about them, though, I think about the young, pregnant reporter who was part of the last 10% of layoffs, and I merely remove it carefully. I can put up with it, I can put my need not to have 3 seconds of mild annoyance when I get the paper below somebody else's need for a job. Before I snapped that perspective in place I was about ready to threaten to switch to the online subscription, myself! My newspaper provides a free blogging space for people, and this issue came up on the blogs too. There were about equal people complaining about it, and people who said while it annoys them, they realize that it pays the bills, and they don't want people out a job, so they'll put up with it. That's what helped me gain the perspective.

I have suggested that they move the ads to the bottom right corner, where the newspaper's fold provides a bit of extra structural support when you pull it off. Sticking that little thing in the middle of the page provides a rip right over the main article seven times out of ten, unless you really take it slow. So if they give a little and move the ad, I'll keep taking the paper without a grumble.

[axordil]

I think newsprint will be gone in ten years for major dailies. "Neighborhood" papers may last a little longer. But of all print media, papers are the most vulnerable to electronic competition.

[Griffon64]

Newsprint is getting mighty expensive, too. The cost of running a crossword in our paper equals the salary of a reporter.

I'm hoping that newspapers will at least survive online, even though that also widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The poor and the elderly depend on the paper more and tend to have less internet access, so they'd be left out of the loop, so to speak. Not that it matters, though. They don't have the spendable incomes and economic activity that is all that matters.

[Frelga]

I read the little free weekly paper. I had subscribed to a local daily for a while, but it wasn't local enough for my little town, and the content was frankly sparse and shallow. And of course the papers themselves pile up. We recycle, but that's still a lot of paper to waste and yes, from my POV, most of it was wasted.

The weekly is choke-full of ads, but there are several columnists I enjoy reading, it has a section on youth sports, and others on local events, elections, schools, parks, libraries, real estate. And of course even the ads are local and so helpful. It's a great supplement to the higher level coverage I get from the Net. If it were not free, I'd pay for subscription.

Would I mind getting the same information over the internet, in an email newsletter or on a website? Well... maybe. Someone argued that the big advantage to the print newspaper is that people are more likely to come across the articles on subjects that they did not specifically request.

[solicitr]

Isn't it exactly about profit, though? The driver for fraud scandals, cover-ups, doctored photos - doesn't that all, in one way or another, boil down to profit? Money being the root of many evils and all that? There's no sense in throwing away your good name for nothing. But people do it for money all the time.

Is money at the root? Jayson Blair and his ilk were motivated by *ambition*- which may include prospects of income, but isn't about lucre at its core. The LAT and Nation weren't motivated in the least by money as far as I can see, but by pushing an agenda. In Reuters' case that was absolutely so. The real problem is not the baleful influence of money (newspapers have always been businesses) but the complete collapse of ethical standards. And thus the media collectively, due to the wrong actions of a few, have lost their single most valuable asset in the information market: CREDIBILITY. Polls reflect the public's complete distrust of the press (somewhere down around Congress, and Nigerian email scammers).

[sauronsfinger]

Well the evening TV news seems to think that the Detroit market will be down to a single paper within a year or two after going to this new plan announced in the first post here. As a kid I remember four major papers.

Beside the journalistic and business impact, this story could have political impact as well.

If that happens it will probably hurt the Republican party in this state - who are already on shaky ground - since the paper in worst financial shape is The News - the obvious conservative paper which almost always supports the Republican viewpoint and candidates. The Free Press - with the much larger circulation and the Sunday paper - is seen as the Democratic paper.

So the next few months are going to be very interesting here for the papers on several different fronts.

[WampusCat]

My local paper is extremely important to me because it gives me employment and makes this a better community. It's still profitable, although ad revenue has declined sharply.

Perhaps it's not the wisest thing to admit, but I would be fine reading the online edition rather than the paper edition. Many days that's exactly what I do. But I want the paper version to be there for two reasons.

The first reason is that there are many people who still prefer that, and it's suicide to cut them off.

The second is that I think the quality is likely to decline. What the online "paper" gains in immediacy and interactivity (and those are significant gains), it could well lose in succumbing to the fluff and snigger factors. When people buy the paper edition, they get the entire package. But in the online "paper," each story and feature is judged by the number of hits it gets. So the fluff and snigger stories almost always top the list, which leads editors to give them greater prominence in an attempt to raise the page views.

Our emphasis right now is on hard-hitting, well-researched investigative local news. If that emphasis weakens, we're doomed.

[tinwë]

One of my best friends works for my local paper!





(She knows who she is )

I feel really blessed to live in a place that has not only a strong local paper but also one that seems to strive for journalistic excellence. And as my friend says, they really do focus on strong investigative news, and their stories have results too, often goading the local and state governments into action on issues that have been overlooked. I consider it an invaluable resource and think it would be a tragedy to loose it.

I usually resist the temptation to look at the online version, at least until I’ve had a chance to peruse the headlines in the print version. There’s just something very satisfying about holding the paper in your hands and reading it. Maybe I’m old fashioned that way, but I hope the print version remains available for a long time.

I avoid watching the local TV news on TV though, but I do check out their websites online regularly.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I wonder if the recession will help small local papers. National and world news is taken care of by big online companies, so there may be a larger market for local papers to handle local news especially for people who don't care for internet papers.

As to my local paper, I don't know because I don't read it. I think the local paper is doing all right. I know it is handled by a company that handles four or five other local towns. I work in a the original capital of NY, and the local paper there seems to be going--it is kind of thin, so maybe that's a sign of the times? Not sure.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

The Philadelphia Inquirer has been having trouble for years, and that was the only local daily that I had read on an occasional basis. However, I stopped doing so years ago, except when I read a copy provided at the local cafe.

The South Jersey Courier Post has had layoffs recently. A lot of folks I knew across the river in Jersey used to read that.

There is a local Delaware county (Philadelphia suburbs) paper, and also the Philadelphia Daily News, neither of which I read--although I was interviewed for the Delaware County paper once (a man-in-the-street interview), when Reagan died.

The Daily News has had trouble like the Inquirer. I believe they are jointly owned, but serve a different demographic.

I occasionally pick Philadelphia Weekly or City Paper, which are weeklies, not dailies. They cover the arts and entertainment scene pretty well, and usually have good in-depth feature articles.

I get most of my news from the Internet.

BrianIs AtYou

[baby tuckoo]

I am a lifelong reader of whatever local paper (The Fresno Bee, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, The Mercury News) as well as the major regional paper, usually The LA Times or The SF Chronicle.

I won't stop unless they do. I don't watch TV news. I just spent a full week with my mother (who broke a hip just after Thanksgiving), and I was reminded why I don't watch. It is with good reason. Whatever flaws you might find with daily print reporting (or the sticky on the front page, which I also see), it pales when compared to the hysteria and frolic of video "reporting." The teases, glosses, and insinuations make me gag. I felt shame to be in the same room with them, though I kept my tongue for Mom seemed interested.


Let's not forget that on-line news is not first hand reporting. It is dirivitive. It relies on the local or regional reports that come from AP or Times or Chronicle reporters who are out there gathering. What will the dirivitives do when no one gathers? A time will soon come when a balance is struck. Somebody has to be at City Hall, and somebody has to attend the news conference at the capital.


By the way, I'm sorry if my local guys, McClatchy, bought up your local guys. Don't worry: they won't keep it long.


bt

[Griffon64]

We're an indie newspaper - but we did have a contract with McClatchy to use their online content publishing system. They kicked us off with 6 months notice a couple months ago.

Six months to find a new system and implement it isn't a whole lot of time

[WampusCat]

I hold no grudges. It was not a hostile takeover. In fact, we saw McClatchy as the white knight coming to rescue Knight-Ridder from the less quality-minded suitors.

Unfortunately, the huge debt it took on along with the miserable economy has dimmed its vision.