The End Of Newsprint
from the who-needs-it dept
Michael S. Malone is discovering that he no longer reads newspapers in newsprint. This may not sound all that surprising, but he's yet another long time newspaper man, who's suddenly realized that he has little need for newsprint. He's still reading news, but he's building his own paper: "a real-time assemblage of wire service stories, newspaper features, blogs, bulletin boards, columns, etc." This is, of course, what some have been saying was happening for a while, and it's clear that Malone has been building up to this. He's recently written other stories about how the NY Times online would kill itself by charging and how news consumption has changed over the years, to the point that people now want to be a part of the news, rather than just consume it. It's a lesson that those in the newspaper business need to understand. While it looks like some are figuring it out, others dismiss Malone's concepts by saying that people have been predicting the death of newsprint for decades and it hasn't happened. That certainly seems a little short-sighted... or rather, rear sighted. It seems that those folks are all about looking backwards, rather than looking forward, which doesn't seem like the best strategy for avoiding future accidents.
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No Subject Given
AP articles are, by their very nature, superficial and lack any degree of depth. Your previous comments about charging online is true if applied to papers that take from the same sources as yahoo and MSN.com. Since the times offers unique content, they MAY get away with charging online, since we would all have to go out and buy the paper again (something I stopped doing years ago when the Times went online).
If the Ann Arbor news or Detroit News started charging on the other hand, I would jiust go to Yahoo.com to get the same news.
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AP vs. NYT [re: Jeff's post]
In terms of keeping political bias out of news articles, I'll take AP over the NY Times any day. Not all NYT articles are slanted, but on certain subjects the writers seem to go out of their way to spin the news their way by downplaying or completely ignoring facts that don't suit their notions.
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?
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Newspapers
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Re: No Subject Given
Yeah, I guess that's true, if you live in New York. But for those of us who live elsewhere, the local paper gives LOCAL NEWS. That may not be important to you, but it's important to a LOT of people. And yeah, my local newspaper has a web site, and right now it's free-if-you-register (and all that requires is a valid email address). Right now I do subscribe to the print paper, but mainly because a) it's easier to read print paper in the toilet, and b) I like getting the Sunday ads to see what's on sale that week.
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Local News...
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Re: No Subject Given
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As soon as paper is "dead"
Our local paper consists of about 8 stories and a bunch of newsfeeds. But its not about the news feeds, its about the ads that go in them. We have a "pennysaver" mag, too, that is all classified & other ads, and it goes like hotcakes, and is always read.
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