Comments on: New Orleans, Alabama and the future of digital journalism

By: oncfari

oncfari — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:39:27 +0000

Most of what the T-P is saying about this is pure nonsense. They tried to spin this as a “planned transition” to digital, creating a firestorm of resistance, when in reality this is about money and the absence of enough of it to run a daily paper profitably. People understand economics, whether they like it or not. But trying to pitch this as a transition to the future has backfired miserably with the people of New Orleans. The public outcry here has been loud and widespread, but I haven’t seen anyone stepping up to commit additional ad dollars, and although a few avid readers have said that would pay more in subscription fees to support the continuation of 7-day/week delivery, I suspect most would not. (Who wants a $10-a-day newspaper?!)

If Advance REALLY wanted to preserve these papers they should be looking at consolidation – not downsizing. Prior to the advent of the Sun Herald on the Mississippi Gulf Coast some 30+ years ago, the people of South MS were all T-P subscribers. IMHO, a regional paper would make a lot more sense, but I suspect that the parochial mindset of the newspaper business would prohibit them from even considering such heresy. So instead, they will all go down the tubes, each believing that THEY will be the one to survive.

And finally, there is the real issue that everyone in Southeast Louisiana is facing: What the hell are we supposed to eat our crawfish on if the T-P goes away???

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:47:49 +0000

… said the man writing a blog for a vertical news aggragator

By: Greg Fitzgerald

Greg Fitzgerald — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:58:24 +0000

These are sad times for traditional print journalists. But we can’t fight the fact that the physical newspaper has pretty much run its course. At $2.00 a copy at the newsstand, I can’t see my own local Boston Globe surviving much longer either. The fact that the publisher in New Orleans doesn’t already have a vibrant local on-line presence says a lot about its business savvy. If the publisher didn’t have a very specific plan on how to put its laid off journalists back to work in its on-line media, I’m skeptical of its intentions to bring back these journalists at all. Sounds like New Orleans is ready for a competitor to come in and really do something on-line that would likely knock the sox off what this publisher is doing. It’s obviously ill prepared for the digital world.

Meanwhile, I suggest other newspapers look at what the Christian Science Monitor has done. Once one of the most respected national and international newspapers in the country with excellent circulation, it no longer publishes in print, other than a very glossy news weekly magazine. But its on-line version, CSM.com still has its “eyes on the prize”, and remains an excellent source for the monitor’s brand of international coverage. The key their was that its publisher understood longer before shutting its printers off that it had to marshal its editorial staff to bring its mission to the digital world.

GF Boston

By: Mark Mayhew

Mark Mayhew — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:08:54 +0000

I live in New Orleans and nobody I know cares much about the newspaper (not enough to ever actually buy a copy of it anyway).

By: Jake Batsell

Jake Batsell — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:21:11 +0000

Mathew, have you (or anyone else reading) seen any solid follow-up coverage of how the Michigan papers’ transition to MLive.com has fared at the statewide level? If you have, would appreciate a link.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:57:54 +0000

“… the doings of the kardashians” seems to be working just fine for huffington on a daily basis.

does anyone recall that publishing only three days a week might allow newspaper/tv stations to skirt a certain ownership rule which says something about publishing 4 days per week?