One of the best things that could possible happen to print journalism is if USA Today went out of business.
On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 10:02 PM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: > The Washington Post has historically been about inside-the-Beltway > > news. This appears to be an effort by Bezos to go for a national > > newspaper. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have > > cut staff and pages. USA Today ain't cutting it and neither is The > > Guardian. > > > > > > > > > > > There was reference in some of the articles that they think > > they have a potential to get more digital revenue. That will be key to > > this effort. > > But there's room for maybe one newspaper to succeed like this. This > > can't be considered a path for other newspapers. > > > > On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:54 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > There are several unique characteristics to the WaPo, one of which is > Bezos > > > and his deep pockets. But I want to think that there is still something > > > generalizable in his apparent demonstration that there is a market for > good > > > journalism. If, as Kevin suggested, this is all just driven by > super-heated > > > election interest, then nothing will come of it. But if the Post really > has > > > found that a combination of investigative reporting and shiney gossip can > > > convince enough Americans to pay a small price for an annual online > > > subscription to the paper, then I think that is something that other > online > > > news sources, and cable news, can apply in their distinctive > environments. > > > One cloud on that parade is, as you note, the big bad monster > conglomerates > > > that see news as nothing but another widget in their portfolio, which is > one > > > reason the Los Angeles Times is not being mentioned as the paper once > again > > > challenging the NYT as a national paper. > > > > > > But I do think CNN is a little bit different situation than the > newspapers > > > own by conglomerates; as I say, like the WaPo, there is nothing in > > > principle or even market pragmatics to prevent or disinhibit them from > > > making money on popular entertainments for large sections of their > > > programming hours, and also increasing investment in three solid original > > > news hours a day and the resources to go live during a crisis to most any > > > reigion in the world. If The Walking Dead were on CNN they could put 10% > of > > > the profit into increased support for news and both journalists and the > > > corporate bean counters would be pretty happy. > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 3:36 PM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > > >> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/12/the-profitable-washington-post-adding-more-than-five-dozen-journalists-004900 > > >> > > >> > > >> The problem with newspapers is not a simple one of the quality of news. > In > > >> other words, consumers looking for news do not weigh if the news they > get > > >> from a newspaper is more worth their money than news from a different > source > > >> and spend accordingly. The legacy newspaper model is built on > advertising, > > >> which means getting papers in front of the most people, and so a paper > had > > >> to appeal to as big an audience as possible. > > >> > > >> Two disruptions: advertising fell off a cliff as classified ads went to > > >> the internet and traditional advertisers like department stores either > went > > >> out of business or stopped buying full page ads. The second disruption > is > > >> that national and international stories are now available for free > online as > > >> well as movie and TV reviews. In order to survive, a newspaper has to > either > > >> keep local and give news not available elsewhere or scale up to go > national > > >> and compete with the New York Times, The Guardian, the WSJ, etc. > > >> > > >> Bezos is scaling the Washington Post up to national/international and he > > >> has pockets deep enough to take the chance. He also has the advantage > of not > > >> being a news syndicate so he does not have to figure out how to use the > > >> profits of his high performing papers to prop up the failing ones. That > is > > >> what keeps other papers from scaling up. > > >> > > >> Could CNN follow the Bezos model? An independent CNN perhaps, but > > >> currently CNN is a small part of Time Warner and the channel's business > > >> goals, dictated from outside, would keep it from making that kind of > change. > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > >> > > >> > > >> TV or Not TV .... 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