Is it The End Of Newspapers?

[jamespowers]

I subscribe to the paper WSJ - good student rates. I think that as long as there are long train commutes there will be someone reading the paper - it's when I read mine.

That's what they invented laptops for.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

We used to take the Seattle Times. Several years ago, they got rid of the local neighborhood delivery boys and contracted with some service to deliver the paper. They'd whiz down the street in a stake truck heaving the papers in the early hours of the morning. What we were guaranteed was the paper would be on the door mat each morning and that wasn't happening, and there were one or two every month that ended up on the roof or in the neighbor's flowerbed or just not there at all. A neighbor's car got sideswiped. Just overall shoddy service. After lots of complaints from the neighbors, they changed delivery services (they said although one stake truck looks an awful lot like another) but I guess their guys in the back of the truck had better throwing arms. At least once a week, around 4 am, we'd have a paper slam into the front door or guest bath window and wake everyone up. So after a few weeks, I thought enough of this, we agreed we weren't really reading that much of the paper and virtually all of it was available at their site online, so we canceled. Other neighbors reached the same conclusion about the same time, because the paper sent out a guy in a suit to ask why we'd all canceled. I said we were tired of having the paper slam into the front of the house and wake us all up. Suit says he'd arrange for the neighborhood to receive the original type of delivery - the paper sitting on the doormat so that when you opened the door in the morning, there's the headline staring you in the face. All was well for a month or two, and then back to the paper slamming into the door. So I canceled again. I think on our block and the adjoining block, there are only 2-3 still taking the paper. I think the Internet is part of it, but I think the shoddy impersonal service and lack of response or remedy to their customer complaints is the big thing. I long for the good old days with the neighbor kid with the local route, but I guess that's yet another thing that's gone and won't return. Whenever they call or have someone canvasing the neighborhood these days offering us whatever time period of free delivery, I ask if they can't just put it directly into the recycle bin because I won't read it and if they're so intent on delivering freebies, they're wasted coming to us. I've had to call a few times because said "free" deliveries that I've said not to deliver have been delivered and then I get a bill. Last time one was delivered I called and requested one of their reps come out immediately. He did. I handed him the paper off the driveway. "What's this?" "Your paper. You delivered it here. I've told you I don't want it. Next time one ends up on my property, I'm filing a complaint with the sheriff for your littering my property."

 

[Twitch]

Around here there are a zillion kids organizations that now sell paper subscriptions instead of stale over priced candy. They have been very effective cause folks wanna help da kiddies right?

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Concerning the big brand name, established newspapers like the New York Times: there are far too many examples of important, responsibly reported stories that have been suppressed because of corporate political bias, pressure and influence peddling. Well, the internet is certainly free (and that's the excuse du jour that they're leaning on), but if the net wasn't performing an important function that the majors were neglecting then I believe folks would still be purchasing subscriptions.

To wit, the newspapers have played a major hand in their own extinction. It's a real pity too, because there's nothing quite like real honest-to-goodness printed matter. The reading experience is completely different - and far more pleasurable. I will shed a tear for the demise of the newspaper - in the abstract, not their current reality - but if they phase out books life won't be worth living anymore!

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

That's what they invented laptops for.

Unpredictable internet and packed trains aren't the best for laptop browsing!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the freedom of the internet is also, conversely, a chronic weakness so far as it being a reliable news source is concerned -- basically, any hack with a bone to pick is free to set himself up as a pundit, and the result is an array of "news blogs" that are just as biased, just as slanted, and, in the end, just as distorted as the newspapers themselves are accused of being. People end up picking and choosing those online sources that agree with their own particular biases, and don't seem to emerge any better informed than they did in the days when print was king.

Maybe, as the net goes thru its growing pains, this sort of cacaphonous din will die out. I hope so -- right now, the pajama-pantsed "citizen journalist" crowd only makes my head hurt. When everyone's yelling, nobody's heard.

 

[Mid-fogey]

During times...

...of great technological change we see much upheaval. Ten years from now many of the sites that "did in" newspaper may themselves be gone.

For me personally, I am by turns encouraged and depressed by the changes.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I think the freedom of the internet is also, conversely, a chronic weakness so far as it being a reliable news source is concerned -- basically, any hack with a bone to pick is free to set himself up as a pundit, and the result is an array of "news blogs" that are just as biased, just as slanted, and, in the end, just as distorted as the newspapers themselves are accused of being.

My partner was floored that his department head at an area community college where he taught until this term would allow Wikipedia entries to be used as valid sources for term papers and such. Her feeling is that if it comes from the Internet, it MUST be true, and at least "the kids" were doing some reading and researching, even if only to a limited degree. I wonder if she also feels the National Enquirer to be a superior informational source since it's printed matter...

Heaven forbid students have to spend a few hours in the library with the card catalogue (which is now computerized in most locales) and pulling books off the shelves... They do have more important things to think about...like when Beyonce's next song is going to be the free download of the day at Starbucks, I guess.

 

[jamespowers]

I think the freedom of the internet is also, conversely, a chronic weakness so far as it being a reliable news source is concerned -- basically, any hack with a bone to pick is free to set himself up as a pundit, and the result is an array of "news blogs" that are just as biased, just as slanted, and, in the end, just as distorted as the newspapers themselves are accused of being. People end up picking and choosing those online sources that agree with their own particular biases, and don't seem to emerge any better informed than they did in the days when print was king.

Maybe, as the net goes thru its growing pains, this sort of cacaphonous din will die out. I hope so -- right now, the pajama-pantsed "citizen journalist" crowd only makes my head hurt. When everyone's yelling, nobody's heard.

True to a certain extent but there used to be two different newspapers here locally----run independently of each other. Each gave their point of view and you knew where they were coming from. Then the 60s came around and they both espoused the same views and consolidated to become one big ANG newspaper group. Now they are all absolutely the same with no opposing views. That's why they have no circulation and why the interenet is replacing them. Before, they had the appearance of impartiality. Now we all know better---for sure.
The internet may not be impartial but it has taken us back to those days when you could read two newspapers---each on a different side----and feel like you actually got both sides. You just read a few different sources and investigate whether they make sense compared to the actual statistics. All of this without having to get rid of the paper after you are done and feeling like you are wasting your money because you only actually read half the paper anyway.

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

My partner was floored that his department head at an area community college where he taught until this term would allow Wikipedia entries to be used as valid sources for term papers and such. Her feeling is that if it comes from the Internet, it MUST be true, and at least "the kids" were doing some reading and researching, even if only to a limited degree. I wonder if she also feels the National Enquirer to be a superior informational source since it's printed matter...

Heaven forbid students have to spend a few hours in the library with the card catalogue (which is now computerized in most locales) and pulling books off the shelves... They do have more important things to think about...like when Beyonce's next song is going to be the free download of the day at Starbucks, I guess.

Now that is ridiculous. Wikipedia is not a good source for anything. You can alter it to match whatever you feel like writing. :eusa_doh:

 

[Twitch]

Ok, Devil's Advocate- if regular newspapers are in some way doomed to exctintion what about rags like the Enquirer, the Globe and all the trash-news papers? Much of their content could be web posted.

 

[panamag8or]

Ok, Devil's Advocate- if regular newspapers are in some way doomed to exctintion what about rags like the Enquirer, the Globe and all the trash-news papers? Much of their content could be web posted.

Their target domographic isn't usually computer-savvy. Plus, airbrushed photos of alien babies shaking the President's hand in the Rose Garden don't translate well to the web.lol

 

[Miss 1929]

Advertisers...

...are not buying print anymore. Why pay twice as much for half the exposure of the internet or cable? When papers were the only timely way of getting the word out about your event, sale or product, the papers did fine.

I worked in print advertising for about 5 years (until about a year and a half ago) and watched the numbers fall off the cliff, for all the local papers, dailies, weeklies, etc.

Without the ad dollars, they have no income - unless they have someone like Rupert Murdoch paying them to be an organ for his opinion, as is increasingly the case with more and more papers.

I would rather get my info from many sources on the Internet and not be force-fed a diet of propaganda. I don't trust any of the papers anymore as I know they must be compromised by their bottom line.

 

[Paisley]

You must be a fan of MAD Magazine (or maybe not).

 

[jamespowers]

Ok, Devil's Advocate- if regular newspapers are in some way doomed to exctintion what about rags like the Enquirer, the Globe and all the trash-news papers? Much of their content could be web posted.

It could but look how long the X-Files lasted.

 

[panamag8or]

You must be a fan of MAD Magazine (or maybe not).

Who, me?

Actually, I am a fan, but I got sort of turned off when they started taking ads... and when they got rid of Don Martin.

 

[Paisley]

I didn't know they started taking ads. They had been proud of the fact that they could make fun of anyone they wanted to.

 

[panamag8or]

I didn't know they started taking ads. They had been proud of the fact that they could make fun of anyone they wanted to.

Yeah, they started that a couple of years ago. I think they print some of the inside pages in color now, too.

 

[Hugh Beaumont]

I am a non-syndicated cartoonist and this has been a topic for 20 years.

Cartoonist think that one of the major contributing factors for the decline of newspaper readership is the dwindling comics sections. Back in the golden era, the comics sections were HUGE with full page works of beautiful art. As a kid in the 70's, I remember anxiously awaiting the Sunday paper to get my hands on the comics section, that was at least 5 pages.

Our subscription to our paper is weekend only. I rarely read anything but the comics, the classified and some local interest stuff. Most of the national/international news I've already heard about. I also distrust the mainstream media. I worked in a PSYOP unit in the US Army and I know what propaganda is and the public is being bombarded with it. Journalism has gone from reporting the facts to sensationalizing and agenda pushing. I don't need any of that in my life.

 

[Paisley]

I see that Rupert Murdoch is planning to end the fees for the WSJ online in hopes of attracting more advertising.