80s TV ads show newspapers weren't always confused about their value proposition

http://www.windycitizen.com/video/media/2010/04/06/take-an-expert-you-charming-1980s-chicago-sun-times-tv-commercials

by brandnewlow • 16 years ago

17 9 16 years ago

Hubbert• 16 years ago

Newspapers' role in cheering on, validating, and accelerating the Trillion Dollar Housing Bubble helped seal their death warrant. In addition (especially in this case), many "reporters" functioned merely as stenographers for interested parties ("Home prices remain fundamentally strong, according to the National Association of Realtors).

It was especially obvious when I found well-informed Web sites blogs that would intelligently dissect and contradict the bad "reporting" on the subject.

brandnewlow• 16 years ago

Yes, that happened to a certain extent.

My point with this submission was to show that the unasked for advice that webby people always seem to be giving newspapers: "focus on your core strength, in depth reporting and expertise" isn't actually a new concept at all. Here's a major metropolitan daily basing an ad campaign around "Take an expert with you." I found that a little surprising.

RyanMcGreal2• 16 years ago

When access to expertise was a scarce and valuable commodity, marketing it to readers was a sound business strategy.

RyanMcGreal2• 16 years ago

For me the death-knell of mainstream media credibility was their role in cheering on, validating and accelerating the illegal, appalling and abysmal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Edit: I'd love to know why someone downvoted this comment.

jbm• 16 years ago

Let me preface this by saying I didn't vote you down (Not the right karma threshold, and I wouldn't bother to do so either). Furthermore, I agree with your sentiment, although I disagree with the premise; that people stopped trusting newspapers over Iraq. Why not over Viet Nam?

That said - partisan, knee-jerk analysis on HN will only lead to HN being another Digg (with people only reading stories that reinforce preconceptions and congregating around certain users).

In the end, if you express an opinion that isn't based on data, and doesn't have anything else about how you reached the opinion, you will probably be modded down by someone.

anamax• 16 years ago

It wasn't just housing, or housing plus the war. It was pretty much everything.

Newspapers have always gotten a lot of content from press releases. Now that we can those from the source, and we can easily get things from other sources, few people are willing to pay for press releases on newsprint.

jakarta• 16 years ago

One of the things David Simon (of Homicide and The Wire fame) cites as a reason for newspapers declining is poor reporting. He says that with year after year of cuts, the number of journalists become smaller and smaller.

Plus, with older reporters getting booted, newer reporters are without good sources and usually have to cover more ground. Meaning, whereas in the 1980s a newspaper may have had one reporter for neighborhood X, one for Y, and another for Z; there is now just one reporter covering all 3. So the depth and expertise declines.

He cited a good recent case, where some police officers were involved in a shooting that may have been police brutality. In the past, the newspaper would have sent a reporter over to cover the hearing. But at that hearing, there were no reporters or 'citizen'-journalist bloggers. So without proper coverage, there is a risk that police misdeeds may go unchecked/under reported.

gvb• 16 years ago

...not to mention that the reporter may be living 12.5 time zones away. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/11/business/fi-pasadena...

mikecane• 16 years ago

The coming death of the newspaper began in the 1980s. I worked in a consultancy specializing in the online world (Prestel, NAPLPS, videotex, et al). And one of the execs saw back then that classifieds -- the heart of paper revenues -- would be stolen away from them. Of course, what happened when the Internet came along was totally unexpected, a true Black Swan event, one guy stealing away all that business with Craigslist. Don't separate money from the issue.

80s TV ads show newspapers weren't always confused about their value proposition

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