Historic Day in Journalism - The Newspaper is Dead, Long Live the Newspaper

[shmessy]

September 10, 2006 - - A milestone turning point in New England journalism. Whether it's good or bad (and I think it's mainly good), everything will be different from here on out.

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/shots/

 

[Brownfan80]

September 10, 2006 - - A milestone turning point in New England journalism. Whether it's good or bad (and I think it's mainly good), everything will be different from here on out.

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/shots/

It's only a matter of time until the cost of the paper outvalues the money spent on hardcopy readerships. This has been coming for years. The tide is starting to turn. Guys like Reiss are the ones that will make it happen.

Who wants to buy a paper tomorrow to find out what you could have already known from Reiss the instant it happened?

 

[godef]

The newspaper is only a medium for providing the news. Just as typesetters were long ago replaced by phototypesetting, the readership of physical newspapers is bound to continue to erode. It's being replaced by the ability to go online and get the news you want.

In theory, the newspapers don't make money by making the news (although some on this board would disagree, but I digress), they were primarily in the business of distributing the news.

 

[njpatsfan]

September 10, 2006 - - A milestone turning point in New England journalism.

Where have you been ? Dead-tree publications have been on the way out since the Drudge Report made Monica Lewinsky famous.

R

 

[CTPatsFan]

The newspaper is only a medium for providing the news. Just as typesetters were long ago replaced by phototypesetting, the readership of physical newspapers is bound to continue to erode. It's being replaced by the ability to go online and get the news you want.

In theory, the newspapers don't make money by making the news (although some on this board would disagree, but I digress), they were primarily in the business of distributing the news.

As someone who delivered them for a number of years, they are now only a medium for providing coupons and ad flyers. That appears to be the only way the papers can keep their "readership" levels up. They don't get their money from the subscribers anymore, it comes from the companies paying for the advertising.

They are good if your dog is house-trained, though.

 

[PATSNUTme]

Are you going to bring in your computer when you are taking a leisurely crap on Sunday morning- I don't think so.

 

[CTPatsFan]

Are you going to bring in your computer when you are taking a leisurely crap on Sunday morning- I don't think so.

C'mon NUT, that's exactly what laptops are for! Aren't they?

 

[shakadave]

Video killed the radio star.

 

[flutie2phelan]

The newspaper is only a medium for providing the news. ....

... newspapers don't make money by making [breaking?] the news ... they were primarily in the business of distributing the news.

There is some error here
and some confusion here.

Newspapers AND RADIO AND TV
provide content - of any description: sports, "news", gossip, comics, etc. -
only as a means of
collecting eyeballs for their advertisers.

They sell their audience to those who want to sell the audience something else.

That's it.
If you miss that, you'll fail in any media.

 

[maverick4]

Not exactly. Take radio for example. Radio was the big thing 50 years ago, but it still exists today and is still lucrative, even though television and film have grown since then.

Paper newspapers will still have their use, while internet news and the youtube and myspace sites will grow and offer a different value proposition.

.

 

[shmessy]

Not exactly. Take radio for example. Radio was the big thing 50 years ago, but it still exists today and is still lucrative, even though television and film have grown since then.

Paper newspapers will still have their use, while internet news and the youtube and myspace sites will grow and offer a different value proposition.

.

Some of our older posters will recall how important and newsbreaking weekly magazines used to be in this country. Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, etc.

Radio, TV and up-to-the minute blogs all have immediacy. Ifr you read Bostonsportsmedia.com and see what ProJo did yesterday, you will see that they have blazed a new trail in New England sports journalism when it comes to newspaper websites. They are posting IMMEDIATELY (not waiting until the newspaper is issued) their writers' and columnists pieces' that will be seen the next day in "print".

What this effectively does is squeeze someone like a Borges or Shaughnessy or Felger who are usually read the day after the event. Now I'm not saying there isn't room for a 12-16 hour later analysis, etc. - - but if they want to have the same deal with readership etc., their professional lives have just changed (not for the first time as with the advent of blogs, but on an additionl level).

 

[Mainefan]

Newspapers are not dead yet. They have a signal advantage over the immediacy of the Internet, radio and TV: they have time to think, interpret and analyze.

But every decent newspaper knows that its main future is on the Internet. They already have news gathering resources superior to those of most blogs (and, after all, news compilers like Drudge merely link back to printed sources available on the Internet.) Most of the big papers and many of the smaller ones are using their news gathering resources to create their own websites.

The New York Times is an excellent example. Its website is one of the five most visited web sites in the US. Much of the content is free, but to access the really good stuff--the op ed columns, for instance--you have to subscribe. The WSJ is similar.

Another piece of technology might change the equation once more. A plastic "paper" that can be magnetically erased and re-imaged, eventually via the Internet. This paper you'll still be able to take out to the hammock on a sunny Sunday, but you won't have a paperboy any more.

 

[maverick4]

What this effectively does is squeeze someone like a Borges or Shaughnessy or Felger who are usually read the day after the event. Now I'm not saying there isn't room for a 12-16 hour later analysis, etc. - - but if they want to have the same deal with readership etc., their professional lives have just changed (not for the first time as with the advent of blogs, but on an additionl level).

Right. Online sites will give immediate facts, but newspapers and magazines will still be read for analysis and opinion and sense of perspective. They will cater to people who don't like to sit in front of a screen while they relax.

.