That's some nice headlinin',smitty.

Surveys show readers want "maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats," he wrote. "We're in the business of satisfying customers, and we will respond to what they say they want."

The dumbing down of America continues.

/It's not the LA Times, Chicago Tribune etc, it's USA Today

Penis.

In five years what newspapers will be left for Fark to link to, and for Google to aggregate from, or will it all be all blog links all the time?

What's a "Newspaper?"

This is the short term plan; the long term plan is to go out of business entirely.

The Tribune won the Ric Romero award for outstanding journalism in 2003.

jebusfreak: What's a "Newspaper?"

It's a print medium that sells advertising to an increasingly dwindling audience, an audience that is already inundated with advertising and would, in fact, like to read actual content. But that's not important right now.

They're selling both the Cubs and Wrigley Field, as well, to pay back billions in debt!

jebusfreak: What's a "Newspaper?"

It's a sort of rag used to start fires and wipe your bottom.

WIN!

You cut 82 pages of news a week and increase adspace. Great plan. Now who the hell's gonna bother picking up your newspaper? Nobody likes advertisements.

DrForrester: This is the short term plan; the long term plan is to go out of business entirely.

Nice!

FormlessOne: But that's not important right now.

ObAirplane! Thank you!

The slow death of print journalism began during the end of the Clinton presidency.
People found out how reporters hid the truth from the public.
Fark them!

The Tribune recently bought The Allentown Morning Call (my local paper).

About the only thing I've noticed is the number of ads increasing.

So this is what a dying media looks like..

//either free with ads or charge for it, but not both.

torquestripe: The slow death of print journalism began during the end of the Clinton presidency.
People found out how reporters hid the truth from the public.
Fark them!

Amazing! Even I couldn't work a "B-bu-but Clinton!" into this one. *golfclap*

FormlessOne: torquestripe: The slow death of print journalism began during the end of the Clinton presidency.
People found out how reporters hid the truth from the public.
Fark them!

Amazing! Even I couldn't work a "B-bu-but Clinton!" into this one. *golfclap*

No problem, anytime.

Somaticasual: So this is what a dying media looks like..

//either free with ads or charge for it, but not both.

Well, to be fair, "both" was the business model for decades when papers and magazines were thriving. They were getting away with it because the content was there, and people either recognized (or put up with) the fact that the ads subsidized the content to some extent. IOW a dime or quarter for a paper with ads still seemed like a fair exchange.

But at some point advertising reaches a tipping point of annoyance. I pay for XM radio largely because I can't stand listening to ads, ads, ads on local radio. Well, that and music choice. And avoiding douchebag DJs...

I'm a journalist at a daily newspaper that's already cut it news hole so I'm getting a kick out these replies ...

/Been in the bidness 20 years
/Really need to get a "real" job

That decision I made in the early '90s to avoid print journalism as a career is looking pretty good right now...

/not that I'm doing anything "career" oriented now...

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: You cut 82 pages of news a week and increase adspace. Great plan. Now who the hell's gonna bother picking up your newspaper? Nobody likes advertisements.

GTFO with your "reason" and "logic." Newspapers are using the RIAA's brilliant strategy now. "Hey, business is slowing down because our old-ass executives fear change and react to it by doing stuff our customers don't like. I know! Let's start farking the customers and low-level employees twice as hard and hope for the best!"

/Newspaper reporter
//Looking for a new line of work before it's too late

I actually like the ads. I only get a Sunday paper for the ads. Please stop bringing me the useless "news" part. Until there's a good site online for coupons I'm going to keep getting it. I cut coupons once every month or two and it pays for itself. News is something I get online or on the radio - I don't need a piece of paper to tell me what yesterdays news was.

RandomKeyStrike: I can't stand listening to ads, ads, ads on local radio

Is it just me, or are ads nowadays much more aggressive and annoying than they used to be? I pulled an old Cubs' tape from '86 a few months ago to hear Harry Caray, and I noticed a marked less-annoying factor in the ads. No yelling, no surprise noises, flashing lights...relatively calm and sane compared to the barage of stimulus aimed at today's gullible psyches. (Cue Calvin and Hobbes' TV set bouncing a full foot off the ground during transmission)...

jebusfreak: What's a "Newspaper?"

It's something with which you can make a bird...or a plane...or a pterodactyl.


/ooooh, there's a sale at Penney's!

A few years ago, when I was in college, I got a phone call from the city newspaper trying to sell me a subscription. I asked, point blank, "since I can go to your website and read your newspaper for free, why should I pay for a subscription?" and she asked, "would charing for our website get you to pay for a newspaper subscription?" I was shocked at that question, and I said, "no. For the classifieds, there's craigslist and yahoo (back when Yahoo had good local classifieds), for the news, there are sites I can go to and read them for free, like the website to the local tv stations, so really, you will never see a dime out of me."

Rug Doctor: Let's start farking the customers and low-level employees twice as hard and hope for the best!"

/Newspaper reporter
//Looking for a new line of work before it's too late

Good luck finding gainful employment in other business arenas where they avoid farking the customers and low-level employees...

"If we take, for instance, The Los Angeles Times to a 50-50 ratio, we will be eliminating about 82 pages a week," Michaels said, leaving the smallest papers of the week at 56 news pages.


Where will the liberturds get their daily dose of left wing propaganda? (new window)

OscarTamerz: "If we take, for instance, The Los Angeles Times to a 50-50 ratio, we will be eliminating about 82 pages a week," Michaels said, leaving the smallest papers of the week at 56 news pages.


Where will the liberturds get their daily dose of left wing propaganda? (new window)

WOW...how do you manage to get your head THAT far up your ass?

OscarTamerz: "If we take, for instance, The Los Angeles Times to a 50-50 ratio, we will be eliminating about 82 pages a week," Michaels said, leaving the smallest papers of the week at 56 news pages.


Where will the liberturds get their daily dose of left wing propaganda? (new window)

Easy now, too much coffee does have ill effects.

/so drink another pot or two.

TxRabbit Quote 2008-06-08 06:27:52 PM
OscarTamerz:

WOW...how do you manage to get your head THAT far up your ass?

It's not like we're lacking examples, are we?






Interestingly when you go to Amazon you can't search his book for other juicy tidbits.

I smell an Internet Tough Guy in our midst...

OscarTamerz: TxRabbit Quote 2008-06-08 06:27:52 PM
OscarTamerz:

WOW...how do you manage to get your head THAT far up your ass?

It's not like we're lacking examples, are we?
Interestingly when you go to Amazon you can't search his book for other juicy tidbits.

Well, you're the biggest example here. Trolls should die quietly, not an option for you as your Pampers are full, go change them, you're stinking up the thread.

I actually work for the Tribune, so I'm getting a kick out of all your replies.

Fact one) Newspapers aren't going anywhere. They are evolving. Radio didn't banish, Broadcast Television didn't shut down, Theater is still there, Operas are still being created, books are being printed, Magazines are still there.

Fact two) Most Newpapers are shifting their resources to the web. That's where the money is-that's where we are going

Fact Three) Tribune was bloated for la long time. Zell is cutting it down. He is a businessman: He's not aiming to cut quality, but excess manpowers. Until we can get back to black, they gotta go.

Fact Four) Los Angeles Times is a darling of the Journalism...but the locals have no use for it. They went national at the expense of the local. We have to get them back.

My father was an editor for several large newspapers.

I've never purchased a newspaper in my life.

If *a single* newspaper would knock it down to magazine size and USE STAPLES I would have been a customer for life.

/Dinosaurs, all of them.

OscarTamerz: TxRabbit Quote 2008-06-08 06:27:52 PM
OscarTamerz:

WOW...how do you manage to get your head THAT far up your ass?

It's not like we're lacking examples, are we?


Interestingly when you go to Amazon you can't search his book for other juicy tidbits.

There are those of use who trust a man that will admit he's abused illicit substances in the past. Because we, ourselves, have abused illicit substances in the past and yet somehow manage to live normal, productive lives.

And it's not as if there's some grand conspiracy to hide "juicy tidbits" from us. They're in the book. I mean, Jesus Christ, man. You're farkin' crazy.

Tell me again why print news even still exists?

Are "newspapers" that thing that wraps around my coupons every week? I hope they don't go away because they make a great wrapper to the coupons!

Surveys show readers want "maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats," he wrote. "We're in the business of satisfying customers, and we will respond to what they say they want."

At last! The newspapers will be filled with elegant, clear graphs of pertinent data, with means, moving averages, standard errors, and trendlines! They will abound with data, and the textual articles will focus on discerning and explaining the trends within those data, and explaining the complexities that underlie the relationships between current events and their historical and contemporary contexts! Finally, people can use the newspaper not only to learn about their world, but to learn to interpret and synthesize facts!

Too bad facts don't sell papers. News execs love 'data', if by 'data' you mean colorful bullshiat trivia lists.

Darth_Lukecash

Fact Three) Tribune was bloated for la long time. Zell is cutting it down. He is a businessman: He's not aiming to cut quality, but excess manpowers. Until we can get back to black, they gotta go.

I'm sorry, but Zell has destroyed any semblance of quality. Most (if not all) intelligent editorials are now gone from the LA Times. The "guest" editorials are garbage, regardless of your political philosophies.

Opinion pieces masquerade as news. Rarely will you get more than one paragraph of fact in an article before the "reporter" starts spouting summaries of opinions that management thinks will sell newspapers.

Fact Four) Los Angeles Times is a darling of the Journalism...but the locals have no use for it. They went national at the expense of the local. We have to get them back.

The locals have no use for your paper because it has turned into an opinion rag with guest editorials. I occasionally will purchase a paper to read the comics, bridge column, or do a puzzle. There is nothing else in the paper that is worth reading.

Zell and the Tribune have taken one approach to "running" a newspaper.
1) Reduce content to the lowest common denominator
2) Terminate expensive journalists and replace them with hacks
3) Attempt to become profitable by selling a commodity good

This of course will fail. I can get commodity news for free from a variety of sources. I can get well written news from a few sources. Why should I pay to read a paper that is at best one step above tabloid journalism?

A paper should provide me with well-researched news. A paper should have clearly defined fact and opinion areas. A paper should help the reader see where these news stories fit into the larger picture.

As it stands now the LA Times and all Tribune properties that I have read are nothing more than advertising vehicles with some comics thrown in.

I used to be a subscriber, and then an occasional reader. Now I may pick up your rag once a week.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears Quote 2008-06-08 06:57:00 PM
OscarTamerz: TxRabbit Quote 2008-06-08 06:27:52 PM

And it's not as if there's some grand conspiracy to hide "juicy tidbits" from us. They're in the book. I mean, Jesus Christ, man. You're farkin' crazy.

So your explanation is pure venality, buy the book, read the rest for yourself. I'll accept that answer. I mean it's not like he gets his coke for free or he has to worry about pissing in a cup. But we all remember how difficult it was for the Clintonistas to get off the hard stuff and the lengths that the FBI had to go to test them, don't we. (new window) The fact that he had so much trouble even stopping smoking wouldn't indicate he's having trouble stopping anything else, would it.

torquestripe: The slow death of print journalism began during the end of the Clinton presidency.
People found out how reporters hid the truth from the public.
Fark them!

Drudge totally screwed them when he broke the blue dress. No one is ever gonna trust them again, according to the latest Rassmussin poll.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_pres idential_election/voters_give_media_failing_grades_in_objectivity_for_election_2 008

I subscribed to the LA Times for years. And then I didn't. A while later, they called me up and offered me eight free weeks to resubscribe. So I did. They would call me up after that offering me free weeks to resubscribe, but I was already a subscriber, and so they told me the offer was not valid for me.

I learned from that that they didn't actually value their subscribers.

/and also their guest editorials are just the pits

OscarTamerz: Duke Phillips' Singing Bears Quote 2008-06-08 06:57:00 PM
OscarTamerz: TxRabbit Quote 2008-06-08 06:27:52 PM

And it's not as if there's some grand conspiracy to hide "juicy tidbits" from us. They're in the book. I mean, Jesus Christ, man. You're farkin' crazy.

So your explanation is pure venality, buy the book, read the rest for yourself. I'll accept that answer. I mean it's not like he gets his coke for free or he has to worry about pissing in a cup. But we all remember how difficult it was for the Clintonistas to get off the hard stuff and the lengths that the FBI had to go to test them, don't we. (new window) The fact that he had so much trouble even stopping smoking wouldn't indicate he's having trouble stopping anything else, would it.

GOD....empty your Pampers, Nancy.

Yeah, yeah, we know the Web, not dinosaur print, is what's important. But, tell me, just where do you think (real) Web news comes from? a) magic b) flying monkeys' butts c) trained journalists?

I hope the Trib isn't cutting all the way down to their flying monkeys because, if the "media" gave the government a free ride this time around, it's gonna be jungle rules in a few years.

I guess I was too verbose in my previous post.

Dear Print Journalism:

Quit trying to sell poorly made, poorly packaged non-scarce goods that are encrusted in stuff I don't want. I can get that for free. You cannot compete with free.

Sell me well-made, well-packaged, scarce goods that are minimally festooned with stuff I don't want. Then you might (re)gain a customer.

If you can't figure out what that is, then you deserve to go out of business.

At the very least, you do not deserve my patronage.

Sincerely,
A (former) Reader

Ow My Balls: RandomKeyStrike: I can't stand listening to ads, ads, ads on local radio

Is it just me, or are ads nowadays much more aggressive and annoying than they used to be? I pulled an old Cubs' tape from '86 a few months ago to hear Harry Caray, and I noticed a marked less-annoying factor in the ads. No yelling, no surprise noises, flashing lights...relatively calm and sane compared to the barage of stimulus aimed at today's gullible psyches. (Cue Calvin and Hobbes' TV set bouncing a full foot off the ground during transmission)...

I think they are (last time I had to hear them). In a crowded environment, you try harder to get attention.

/MKT major

strangeguitar: That's some nice headlinin',smitty.

Indeed, I concur. awesome.