Article source for : Summer 2008 news about media
June 27, 2008 - "'Portland Press Herald,' 'Maine Sunday Telegram' Cut 36 Jobs, Close News Bureaus ":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003821679
June 27, 2008 - "'Star-Tribune' in Minneapolis Goes Green with Biodegradable Plastic Bags":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003821768
June 29, 2008 - "'Chicago Tribune' Call For 'Repeal' Of 2nd Amendment Outrages Pro-Gun Group":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003822100
June 30, 2008 - "'Plain Dealer' Cuts 32 Pages Per Week, Drops Four Sections":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003822536 :
q.
After weeks of speculation about pages being reduced and sections eliminated, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland is cutting an average of 32 pages per week, according to Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons. She told E&P that the changes will include the elimination of four regular weekly stand-alone sections, including Monday business. In addition, the paper will reduce its two-page daily opinion spread of columns and editorials down to one page. But the Sunday opinion pages will be increased by two pages, Simmons said.
Simmons stressed that none of the page reductions would occur in the main national, international or metro news pages. She said the paper could still provide the news it must, but "perhaps with shorter stories, and sharper editing will be increasingly important." While Page One will not be affected by the changes, Simmons said, the paper's A-2 will see a different look, with a daily column or feature item along the right side, as well as briefs, quicker reads and refers to the Web site. "A quick breakdown of today's most interesting news," Simmons said describing that page.
Elsewhere in the paper, however, cuts will abound. The Monday separate business section will be eliminated, with its content placed elsewhere in the paper. Simmons said that section differed in size each week, but ran eight pages today. On Wednesday, a stand-alone style section and stand-alone food section will be combined into one section, while Thursday's paper will see the consolidation of two stand-alone sections on arts & life and food & garden. Friday's arts & life section will be cut, with its content relocated into the Friday magazine or other sections, Simmons said.
The daily financial report will be expanded, she said, with reorganized stock listings that actually provide more stock prices. The paper is also creating a page-and-a-half wide spadia that will include comics, horoscopes, television listings and other features wrapped around the classified section.
q..
July 1, 2008 - "Another Illinois Paper Cuts Monday Editions":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003822832 :
q.
[T]he publisher of the Review Atlas in Monmouth, Ill., announced that the paper would no longer produce a Monday edition. The announcement was made Monday by Review Atlas Publisher Tony Scott, who cited rising newsprint costs, gasoline and postage costs, and declining ad revenue. The paper will now publish Tuesday through Saturday. At the beginning of June, the Review Atlas' sister paper, the Kewanee Star Courier, announced that it, too, was doing away with its Monday paper. Both papers are owned by GateHouse Media. The newspaper was also suffering from the industry's slump in overall ad revenue (down 12.9% from last year), and classified revenue ( down 24.9% from last year).
q..
July 1, 2008 - "Monster Founder Sets Sights on Online Obits":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003822965 :
q.
Now, just as papers are reeling from a massive drainage of ad dollars online, Taylor thinks he's found another one of their strongholds that's ripe for online competition: Obituaries. Funerals have historically been local affairs, which meshed well with newspapers' strong ties to their communities. But Taylor believes that may be changing as more people live far from the places they were born and grew up. Taylor hopes his new site, Tributes.com, will fill that broader need.
Unlike when Monster debuted in 1994, Taylor faces a lot more competition. Newspapers are already big players online in the obituaries business, thanks largely to a 10-year-old company called Legacy.com, which runs the obituary sections of Web sites for more than 650 newspapers, for which it earns a fee. The site, which is 45 percent owned by publisher Tribune Co., gets 12 million visitors per month.
Legacy, like competitors such as Memory-Of.com, offers a variety of ways for bereaved family members and friends to remember loved ones including virtual guest books, which can be archived online for a fee. Taylor says his new venture can do that and more, but without relying on newspapers for information about funerals and deaths. Instead, Tributes.com will glean that information through alliances with funeral homes and groups directly as well as trade associations and public information about deaths from Social Security, though he declined to divulge specific deals.
Sophisticated search and database technology will allow users of Tributes to get e-mail alerts, say when someone from their home town passes away, Taylor said. Tributes expects to make money from selling advertising, online memorials and gift items like flowers and cards.
Death notices, which are generally of much greater interest to people in their 60s and 70s, could be the next category of classified advertising to make a big move online, Taylor believes. Older people may not be as heavy users of the Internet as the young these days, but that could likely to change with the tech-savvy Boomer generation now entering their 60s. A recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only 37 percent of people aged over 65 currently use the Internet, compared with 72 percent for those aged 50-64.
q..
July 2, 2008 - "'L.A. Times' Cuts 250 Jobs, 15% of Pages":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003823945
July 2, 2008 - "McClatchy VP Weaver Goes 'Wiki' on Industry Crisis":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003823506 :
q.
McClatchyNext purports to be a Wikipedia-like site where anyone can offer views and ideas that will be better organized than just the blog, according to Weaver. "The blog is a clumsy way to do it," he told E&P. "The wiki takes the collaborative process and organizes it a little better."
q..
http://mcclatchynext.pbwiki.com/
http://editor.blogspot.com/
July 5, 2008 - "As it stands: Outsourcing newspapers is offensive":http://eurekareporter.com/article/080705-as-it-stands-outsourcing-newspapers-is-offensive
July 7, 2008 - "'Times-Picayune' Cuts Most Mississippi Circulation":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003825018
July 8, 2008 - "'Chicago Trib' to Cut 80 Positions from Newsroom":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003825601
July 8, 2008 - "Copyediting? Ship the Work Out to India":http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2008/gb2008078_678274.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis
July 9, 2008 - "Readers have NOT left the building":http://www.readership.org/blog2/2008/07/news-flash-readers-have-not-left.html :
q.
The 2008 RI tracking study of newspaper and online readership in 100 U.S communities of various sizes has some good news and bad news.
* Readership of the local daily newspaper among the general population is down a little from the last reading in 2006, but that result may be due to seasonal variation.
* Readership among 18-24-year-olds in the general population continues to slowly decline; but the habit is fairly stable for 45-plus.
* People who read newspapers say they spend, on average, 27 minutes with them on weekdays, and 57 minutes on Sundays. The first figure has stayed stable, but the latter figure has been slowly dropping since we first started tracking in 2002.
* Readers continue to engage with the newspaper, on average, more than five days a week.
* On average they complete 60 percent of the paper on weekdays and 62 percent on Sundays again, stable habits.
* The penetration of newspaper Web sites is still quite low in most communities, though it should be noted that we measured response only to the main site, not to related sites whose ownership consumers might not recognize.
The 2008 results surprised me, as they did last time in 2006. Why aren't they much worse, when the imminent demise of newspapers seems to be all we ever hear about?
The short answer is that reading customers aren't deserting newspapers at anything approaching the rate that advertising customers are. That is no consolation for newspaper company employees who are losing their jobs, and it's a challenge, to say the least, for a smaller staff to produce, sell and deliver a high-quality local news report for the people who want it.
But make no mistake: lots of people still want it and lots are paying attention to the local newspaper.
As well as (pleasantly) surprising me, some of the results disappointed me, especially in respect to Web sites. I don't think it's realistic to expect frequent and intense use of a newspaper's main site by a large proportion of the population. There are too many other goodies on the Web. There are many other sites that "own" categories like national and international news, sports and business, lifestyle or entertainment. A significant proportion of locals don't care much about local news, at least not enough to seek out regular doses of it.
But 62 percent of respondents said they had never visited the local newspaper's Website, and only 14 percent said they had visited between the last seven to 30 days, numbers that have improved only a little over the last five years. The Site Usage Measurement (SUM) score for the general population is a feeble 1.26 on a 1-7 scale. When non-users are removed from the sample, Web site users score 2.54.
Further, readers are more engaged with print than with the Web site. Ratings for four experiences "gives me something to talk about", "looks out for my interests", "ad usefulness" and "touches and inspires me" were significantly higher for the newspaper than for the site. (A fifth experience, "trust and credibility" was equivalent, indicating that the print brand on this experience dimension may carry over to other platforms.)
q..
July 16, 2008 - "More Than 80% of Top 30 Online Newspapers Report Rise in June Uniques":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003828017 :
q.
The summer doldrums are not slowing down the number of unique visitors to newspaper Web sites. For June, more than 80% of online newspapers in the top 30 recorded increases in monthly unique audience numbers compared to the same month a year ago
New York's Daily News Online jumped 109% year-over-year in June to 3.8 million uniques. Advance Newspapers' MLive.com, a one-stop shop for its Michigan properties, rose 80% to 1.5 million uniques. Newsday advanced 73% to 3.0 million uniques. Monthly uniques at Village Voice Media was up 70% to 2.2 million.
Below is the list of the top 30 newspaper Web sites provided by Nielsen. The percent change compares June 2008 uniques with June 2007 uniques. Also keep in mind there are several reasons why traffic fluctuates, including news events.
The top 30 newspaper Web sites in May can be found here.
Brand or Channel -- Unique Audience (000) -- % Change (YoY)
NYTimes.com -- 17,650 -- 41%
USATODAY.com -- 9,626 -- 12%
Washingtonpost.com -- 9,062 -- 11%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 6,441 -- 52%
L.A. Times -- 6,190 -- 21%
Boston.com -- 5,226 -- 23%
Chicago Tribune -- 4,920 -- 58%
New York Post -- 4,617 -- 51%
Daily News Online Edition --- 3,803 -- 109%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 3,621 -- (-8%)
Newsday -- 3,031 -- 73%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 2,733 -- (-4%)
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,669 -- 34%
International Herald Tribune -- 2,454 -- 54%
The Politico -- 2,437 -- 43%
Village Voice Media -- 2,217 -- 70%
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 2,213 -- 26%
The Houston Chronicle -- 2,158 -- (-44%)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,925 -- 4%
The Seattle Times -- 1,924 -- 42%
Star Tribune -- 1,844 -- 55%
MercuryNews.com -- 1,669 -- 48%
Azcentral.com -- 1,621 -- (-8%)
tampabay.com -- 1,579 -- 16%
MLive.com -- 1,578 -- 80%
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,554 -- 51%
NJ.com -- 1,539 -- 0%
Ottaway Newspapers -- 1,485 -- (-30%)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- 1,450 -- 33%
KansasCity.com -- 1,447 -- 33%
q..
July 18, 2008 "memo":http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13486 :
q.
Memo from Wisconsin State Journal's managing editor
From: Tim Kelley
Sent: Thu 7/17/2008 5:23 PM
To: _CN WSJ
Cc:
Subject: two-section WSJ
Beginning Monday, Aug. 4, and on Mondays through August, we will test a two-section paper with our readers. Each Monday, the paper's news and features will appear in the first section, and sports and classified will appear in the second section.
The two-section approach will reduce the overall number of pages printed without substantially reducing newshole. Eventually, we may consider running two sections Monday through Wednesday. The typical paper size would be 32 to 36 pages. These would be straight runs operating under current deadlines and makeover points.
Also, starting this Sunday, advance-printed Sunday features will be published in two sections rather than three. Adventure will appear inside Lifestyle. As with the two-section paper, a two-section Sunday advance run will reduce pages printed while not eliminating regular features.
Ellen and I will be discussing content and schedule changes to the paper with editors this week and next week. We'll provide more information to all staff as it becomes available.
q..
July 18, 2008 - "Modesto Bee to be printed in Sacramento, 80 jobs eliminated":http://www.modbee.com/breakingnews/story/364385.html
July 18, 2008 - "Baltimore Sun cuts 100 jobs, including 55 from newsroom":http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-sun0718,0,2556722.story
July 18, 2008 - "'Orlando Sentinel' Publisher Acknowledges Newsroom Cuts":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003829312
July 18, 2008 - "TV, radio will regret print's plunge":http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117989178.html?categoryId=1682&cs=1 :
q.
Let's face it: TV and radio stations rely on the local newspaper for most of their news. So what happens to those "rip and read" broadcasters as print staffs shrivel amid the draconian layoffs strafing the newspaper industry?
Here's what: Shrinking print coverage threatens to trigger a "domino effect" as news operations downsize, feeding the strange Internet age conundrum where there's more information -- courtesy of blogs and the Web -- but less real news, especially as it pertains to backyard issues.
q..
Are we getting real news in the Toledo Blade? For a year or so, the Blade has been hung up on the possible demolition of the Seneca County courthouse. Who cares? That's two counties away, and it's just a building? If the Blade was concerned about a loss of history, why not investigate the continual destructive development of the Oak Openings Region?
As to real news, why doesn't the Blade bulldog investigate Toledo city government, Lucas County government, and the Toledo public school system? The Blade should be filing open records requests daily on those orgs. Those are the three biggest local wastes of our tax dollars.
Print goes down the tubes, big deal. The media landscape will adjust and new, lean and efficient and targeted media orgs will emerge, and the public will be informed on their favorite wastes of time. Sports org will do sports. Entertainment orgs will do entertainment. Politics, events, weird and useless fluffy stories, may all have their own orgs that specialize in these areas. Probably all online of course with limited printings.
Print's demise is not the fault TV and radio. The blame belongs to print.
More from this whiny Variety opinion :
q.
Print journalists have long chafed at broadcast media pilfering their stories, often without bothering to credit the source. The seldom-mentioned practice went very public and nasty in 1999, when the Toledo Blade sued WSPD-AM in Ohio for "pirating" and "misappropriation" of stories. Then again, the Clear Channel station was hardly subtle, featuring a morning host whose motto was "I read the Blade so you don't have to."
q..
July 20, 2008 - "After Layoffs: Newspapers Get Smaller, Pew Study Finds":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003829623 :
q.
U.S. daily newspapers aren't shrinking just their newsrooms, an extensive study released Monday finds. Stories, page count, sections, international and national news are all smaller, too -- and only a minority of editors think online journalism will save their papers.
q..
July 21, 2008 - "Who Said Print Was Dead? New NNN Study Shows Rise in Readership":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003829489 :
q.
More people are reading newspapers in the top 100 markets, according to Spring 2008 Media Mark Research & Intelligence (MRI) data on behalf of the Newspaper National Network (NNN). The spring survey showed a reader uptick of 2.5% to 80.6 million from 78.7 million compared to the same period in the prior year.
Newspaper circulation for the six months ending March 2008 fell 3.5% for daily and 4.5% on Sunday, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Major metro experienced some of the biggest drop-offs.
However, the NNN points to a few factors for the gain: Newspaper Web sites may be drawing people to the print edition. Publishers are cutting circulation like third-party copies -- which went to infrequent readers -- and instead are focusing on "core" subscribers. The NNN also believes that secondary readership is up, and that freebies like am New York and Metro are making inroads.
The NNN said that the fall 2007 numbers were also up 1.8%. Along with the spring data, these are the first increases the measure has shown since it was created in the fall 2003. However, newspaper readership still has a way to go before it catches up with the fall 2003 data. In that period, 85.3 million people read a newspaper.
q..
July 21, 2008 - "Allentown Paper to Cut 35-40 Jobs, Close Bureaus -- Redesign Coming":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003829942
July 21, 2008 - "'Sun-Sentinel' Cutting News Staff 20% -- But Not Reporting It":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003829794
July 22, 2008 - "Milwaukee Journal Communications Earnings Drop 36% On Falling Revenue":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003830179 :
q.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel publisher Journal Communications Inc. reported Tuesday that its second-quarter profits dropped 36% to $9 million, or 16 cents a share from $14.2 million, or 21 cents a share a year ago.
Journal Communications said its revenue for the quarter fell 5% to $140.1 million, from 4147.5 million in the year-ago period. Revenue from the Journal Sentinel and its 45 other community papers fell 8.5% to $61.8 million, largely on weakness across all advertising categories, the company said. Interactive advertising revenue at the daily newspaper increased 11.4% to $3.7 million.
Operating earnings from publishing plunged 44.0% to $5.7 million compared to $10.2 million in the year-ago period that included a $900,000 gain on the sale of property. Excluding the gain, publishing operating expenses are down 3.6%.
Earlier this month, Journal Sentinel announced a plan to reduce its workforce by an additional 10%, which Smith said will result in a charge of between $3.8 and $4.0 million, most of which will be recorded in the third quarter. He said he expected cost savings for the remainder of the year to be between $1.4 and $1.6 million, with full year net savings expected to be between $5.6 and $6.0 million.
q..
July 22, 2008 - "'Commercial Appeal' in Memphis Shrinks to 46-Inch Web":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003830183 :
q.
The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., is shrinking its print newspaper to a 46-inch web from 50 inches, the paper reported Tuesday. In a story today, the paper said that the size cut is partly in response to recent 30% increases in newsprint costs. "The newspaper has been redesigned ... saving Memphis Publishing Co. about 6 percent in paper," the story reported.
The paper pointed out that: "newsprint, the industry's No. 2 cost behind labor, represents 10 to 15 percent of costs. Because the price is rising at the same time advertising revenue is hitting record lows -- average advertising revenue fell 15 percent in the second quarter -- publishers are making hard choices, cutting staff or news space, or both."
The Commercial Appeal last reduced its size in March 2001, when it went from a 54-inch web to a 50-inch web, the paper reported, adding, "today's reduction is an almost identical change and will save the newspaper about 1,000 metric tons of paper."
q..
July 22, 2008 - "Community Papers Report Better Ad Revenue":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003830344 :
q.
Not all is gloom and doom in the world of newspapers.
Preliminary numbers gathered by Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) show that advertising revenue rose 0.5% in 2007. Publications that fall in this group represent total circulation of 12.5 million and about $2 billion in annual advertising revenue.
However these papers are not shielded by a downturn in the economy: In Q1 2008 the preliminary results showed an overall decline of 2.7% in advertising revenue. Still, the Newspaper Association of America said that in the same period, ad revenue fell 12.8%.
"For the most part, community newspapers are not experiencing the major declines the we are seeing with the large metro papers," Nancy Lane, president of SNA, told the organization's newsletter.
q..
July 23, 2008 - "'NYT' to Raise Newsstand Price -- Again":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003830539 :
q.
The New York Times Co. will increase the Monday-Saturday newsstand cost of its flagship paper by 25 cents to $1.50, the publisher said Wednesday.
Times Chief Executive Janet Robinson said the price increase for the New York Times will take effect Aug. 18. The company has already raised home delivery prices for the paper 4.5 percent in two separate hikes since last July. That helped overall circulation revenue rise 2.5 percent in the latest quarter.
The move comes a week after The Wall Street Journal said it would boost its newsstand price by 50 cents to $2 starting July 28 to reflect both new content and higher costs. Newspaper publishers are battling sharp rises in newsprint costs and deep declines in advertising revenue.
q..
July 23, 2008 - "NYT Co. Profit Off 82% In 2Q":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003830461
q.
New York Times Co.'s second-quarter earnings fell 82 percent from a year ago, when it saw a one-time gain from the sale of a unit, but print advertising continued to shrink and pulled down operating income, the publisher said Wednesday.
q..
Aug 10, 2008 Politico "Why I also didn't write on John Edwards":http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0808/Why_I_also_didnt_write_on_John_Edwards.html?showall :
q.
Over the past two days, the mainstream media has taken its lumps for not aggressively following up on the John Edwards story after the National Enquirer's first report in October 2006, and especially since the magazine revealed on July 22 that there was a confrontation with their reporters at the Beverly Hilton.
q..
Aug 10, 2008 New York Times columnist David Carr "All of Us, the Arbiters of News":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/business/media/11carr.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin :
q.
Early on in any journalist's career, the young reporter is besieged by advice from all sides. Flacks, sources and run-of-the-mill busybodies will pound on the phone about why the reporter isn't covering this or that story. And then, a sage editor will appear and counsel the newbie: "We decide what the news is." That truism still attains; it's just the meaning of the pronoun has changed. Yes, we decide what is news as long as "we" now includes every sentient human with access to a mouse, a remote or a cellphone.
q..
Aug 10, 2008 CNN "transcript":http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/10/rs.01.html
q.
KURTZ: Right. Her lawyer says she's a private person and she does not want to talk. Neither does the other former Edwards campaign aide who she says is the father, a guy by the name of Andrew Young.
David Carr, let's pull back the camera a little bit. I mean, this was a story that wasn't reported at all by the major media. Now it's all over cable and every place else. What does it say about the old media gatekeepers that this got out, that everybody found out about this, without our participation?
CARR: Well, I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. *I think that's still true, it's news when we say it is.* It's just who "we" is has changed. Members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones are now producers, editors. They can push and push and push on a story until it ends up being acknowledged by everyone.
KURTZ: Yes. In this case, it certainly took a while.
q..
Aug 11, 2008 Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz "Affair Put Press in A Touchy Situation":http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/10/AR2008081002313.html :
q.
When critics, especially on the right, accused the media of protecting a Democrat because of liberal bias, journalists were unable to respond, because to do so would be to acknowledge the very thing they were declining to report. At the same time, in an area of financial cutbacks and shrinking staffs, news organizations have fewer reporters to dig into what most considered a less-than-pressing priority.
Those who blithely dismiss a brash supermarket tabloid -- what New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller called the "hold-your-nose quality about the Enquirer" -- had better check the record. The Enquirer's reporting of the O.J. Simpson extravaganza of the '90s was good enough to be cited by the Times itself. In 2001, the tabloid reported both that Hillary Clinton's brother had been paid $400,000 to secure a presidential pardon for a convicted businessman, and that Jesse Jackson had fathered an out-of-wedlock child. In 2003, Rush Limbaugh acknowledged an addiction to painkillers after the Enquirer reported that Florida authorities were looking into his drug use.
q..
Aug 10, 2008 San Francisco Chronicle "The death knell of what we need to know":http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/09/IN4K125G6K.DTL :
q.
Conservatives rooting for newspapers' demise should be careful what they wish for. Yes, fewer reporters mean fewer biased stories about lesbian immigrants fighting an unsympathetic establishment. But there also won't be as many stories about sanctuary city policies gone bad, the latest zany law out of San Francisco City Hall, or the growing bite that public employee pension systems are taking out of city and county services.
They don't understand that Fox News and talk radio aren't going to report on stories that require local beat reporting and time-consuming and expensive investigation. And there won't be as many nonideological stories - about crimes or zoning or state spending - until what was once a solvable problem festers, unreported, into a front-page disaster.
q..
But that's the problem. A daily newspaper like the Toledo Blade is already not doing enough hard-hitting, investigative journalism on the three biggest local taxpayer drains, which include Toledo city government, Lucas County government, and the Toledo Public School system.
The Blade should be hammering those organizations constantly with open records requests and threatening legal action on those orgs if they don't respond to the requests fast enough. Then the Blade should report what they find and don't find. It would be nice to know that a certain function of local government appears to be working efficiently.
Problem is, these types of stories would be snoozers to most of the readers, when in fact, they would be informative, educational, and a shining spotlight on how our tax money is being spent. The Blade would actually be doing a service by constantly investigation these organizations.
But instead, the Blade has spent a year or more reporting on the possible demolition of the Seneca County courthouse, which is located two counties away. The existence of that building means nothing to Toledo/Lucas County residents. It's a waste of reporting time. It's why a local newspaper won't be missed.
And now the Blade is worried about the United Way demolishing its downtown Toledo building to save money.
Aug 10, 2008 Toledo Blade op-ed "Waste of a good building":http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080810/OPINION02/738363863 :
q.
THE "decision":http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080808/NEWS16/808080342 by United Way of Greater Toledo to demolish its 39-year-old headquarters building with little advance public notice is a terrible waste of a valuable urban resource that not only violates the spirit of our preservationist philosophy but also could hurt efforts to revitalize downtown. Very simply put, downtown Toledo needs more buildings, not more destruction.
If the downtown is to enjoy a revival, and we believe the current energy crisis makes that prospect all the more likely, a big stock of substantial structures will be required.
q..
Again, I see no problem with the disappearance of the Toledo Blade from the media landscape if the above is what concerns the Blade's editorial board. First, the writer of the above piece is an imbecile to think that an energy crisis will cause area residents to move to downtown Toledo. Talk about living in an alternative universe.
People are leaving Toledo and Lucas County because of the miserable Toledo public school system and the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars by the dolts in local government.
Aug 14, 2008 - "Gannett to cut 1,000 newspaper jobs - memo":http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN1427376520080814?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true :
q.
Gannett Co Inc plans to eliminate 1,000 positions from its local newspapers around the U.S. because of declining advertising and circulation revenue, and may cut more if those conditions persist.
The largest U.S. newspaper publisher said the cuts equal about 3 percent of the positions in its Community Publishing unit, according to a memo obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The unit accounts for the vast majority of the company's newspapers, except for USA Today.
About 600 people probably will be laid off as part of the cuts, the memo said. The remaining cuts will come from retirements, resignations and other vacancies that will go unfilled.
U.S. newspaper publishers have been battered by a steep fall in classified advertising revenue brought on by wider economic woes spurred by the housing crisis as well as a steady migration of readers seeking free news on the Internet.
q..
Aug 12, 2008 - "TV Networks Rewrite the Definition of a News Bureau":http://tinyurl.com/65hm8c
Aug 13, 2008 - "Tribune Takes Huge Q2 Loss on $3.8 Billion Write-Down":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003838712
Aug 13, 2008 - "The AP Of All Place As News Industry Think-Tank":http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/08/fresh-thinking-from-the-ap.html
Aug 14, 2008 - "McClatchy Companywide Wage Freeze to Begin in Septembe":http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839172
- 30 -
tag=media
frontpage=no
