Why local newspapers are worth saving

http://alexdmoore.com/local-newspapers-preserve-our-culture

by lloydarmbrust • 16 years ago

72 46 16 years ago

alexdmoore.com

lefstathiou• 16 years ago

I'm sorry but they really are not worth saving.

jeremymims5• 16 years ago

Whether the newspaper continues to be distributed on paper, the newspaper as a service is incredibly important.

At Seeing Interactive, one of the problems we find is that people have confused an old-fashioned method of distribution with the important journalism and community building contained within. Sometimes the newspapers themselves are troubled by this very point. It has merely been a coincidence that for the last 250 years the best way to distribute news was on paper and that for the last 150 years or so it has been immensely profitable.

So when people say they don't want to save the newspaper, they're merely stating a preference that they'd rather read news online than on paper.

Travis• 16 years ago

My two cents: I don't think much of the modern pseudo-journalism (and journalists) are worth saving. Granted, I don't subscribe to my local paper (the San Diego union is a noted piece of junk), but I can only think of a couple of writers who have the integrity and ability to call themselves journalists.

Most of the content produced nowadays has been chosen specifically to elicit a strong emotional response from readers/viewers. It's not worth saving, in my mind, because I disagree with the central precept of the linked article, that the content they generate is worthwhile.

Besides, most of the stuff is just reprinted from reuters anyhow. Even the comics stink nowadays. Ever read the sports section? Look at how backwards (and intentionally so!) the sports sections are (if you're unfamiliar with how wrong modern sports "journalists" are, read FireJoeMorgan).

In short, journalism already has gone away. All that's remaining is to clear the husk that remains.

jeremymims5• 16 years ago

This is exactly why we're proud to have Alex as an advisor.

Our job isn't easy. We're trying to help an industry at an inflection point.

Some "papers" will survive. Some will fail. The ones we work with will have better chance at making the transition.

nowarninglabel2• 16 years ago

This actually seems like a rather thinly veiled marketing attempt for your company, pulling on the heart strings of local paper lovers for the company's profit.

There was a lot of subjective emotion and very little objective facts in the blog. How about some sources and reality checks on costs and benefits.

jeremymims5• 16 years ago

Maybe what you're seeing is passion for solving the problem. We feel very strongly about it. That passion is likely a big reason why Alex invested.

BTW, our customers are newspapers. I'm not sure how much "heartstring pulling" we need to do for them to see that we objectively make them more money.

bryanlarsen• 16 years ago

I must be in the minority here, but I subscribe to and regularly read the newspaper. I'd be sad if it went away.

jeremymims5• 16 years ago

At Seeing Interactive, our goal is to save the journalistic and community building functions of the "paper" as well as keep the papers profitable.

The only way we know how to do that right now is to help newspapers make significantly more money online.

jdminhbg• 16 years ago

There are a lot of (sometimes very vague) positive effects of local newspapers described here, but to be convinced that they're "worth saving," I'm going to need to know what the cost is.

jeremymims5• 16 years ago

Right now, they just need to make the transition online. But if you wanted to run a small online newspaper for a small town, the cost is low.

If a town of 20,000 people wanted to ensure that the newspaper stuck around and produced solid quality news they could access online in perpetuity, they'd need to subsidize it to the tune of about $1.25 per person per month. Advertising would likely take care of the rest.

If one was worried about government interference, this fee could be bundled this into cable subscription packages and it would basically work out the same way.

jobu• 16 years ago

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought that local newspapers were doing fine. Most large city and metro papers are hurting, but small community papers are entirely different. Typically they are supported by ads and distributed to everyone in the community (no subscribers). They tend to have truly local news that isn't or can't be covered by major newspapers and rarely makes it into online news.

lloydarmbrust5• 16 years ago

True to a degree. Think of small local papers as having a 10-year buffer--they're like looking at large papers in 2001.

There are several groups trying to kill small papers (like patch.com). And they will succeed if newspapers do not rise to the challenge. Technology is becoming cheap and accessible enough that makes this scenario possible. But the difference between patch and a local paper is that Patch doesn't really care about the markets they server--if they stop making a enough revenue they could pull out and leave after they've killed the small paper serving that market.

brandnewlow5• 16 years ago

I think Patch will stick around long enough to kill of many, many local papers.

Then AOL will have a leadership changeover or will get bored of it not really making much money and shut it down creating a void in many communities.

chc• 16 years ago

Small local newspapers are in a better place than the big boys — mainly because they don't tend to have as much debt — but they're actually harder hit by things like Craigslist and Yelp murdering previously lucrative ad markets.

Incidentally, I blame the newspapers themselves for that. They could have been Craigslist, but instead they were too slow to adapt and got squashed by a better product.

lloydarmbrust5• 16 years ago

Agreed. Newspapers aren't dying, they're slowly committing suicide.

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

The Phoenix paper, the Arizona Republic, keeps cutting back and cutting back. They have interesting rationales for this, too. For example, the Monday paper is more of a broadsheet than a newspaper; they claimed "readers told them" they don't want a regular-sized edition after getting the big ad-crammed Sunday paper. Yeah, I'm sure. Didn't come with a corresponding price drop though.

Meanwhile, what content they do offer is increasingly from the AP or some other, larger paper, such as the L.A. Times.

On some occasions they do offer good, interesting local reports, but their current plan of routinely raising the subscription price while reducing content seems poorly thought-out.

marbletiles2• 16 years ago

Local journalism is worth saving. Nothing he talks about is intrinsic to print.

brandnewlow5• 16 years ago

True, but.....what else could replace them?

Good luck replicating the relationships that the local newspapers have with the people in their communities who are able and willing to report on them. It's true that we don't have to use newspapers to distribute local reporting, but the only companies in most communities that have connections to the journalists there happen to be called newspapers and happen to put out a print product.

Any new service that wants to distribute local journalism will have a hard time re-doing all the relationship building that the newspapers have.

When I started Windy Citizen two years ago, I thought we'd be able to give people a better way to find news in their city. That's gone quite well, but I've learned firsthand that the real value that the "newspapers" have is that they're the ones that have all the journalists. There's a non-profit news startup here in Chicago called the Chicago News Coop that also had a similar goal when they started up. But instead of making a cool new product and taking lessons from hacker culture, they went out and stole away the crown jewel reporters from the Tribune and the local alt. weekly. They may be broke as a joke, but good journalists definitely would like to work there, which means in the end, they'll have a good product.

You know how people on HN talk about how hackers only want to work for and with other hackers?

Most journalists only want to work for and with other journalists. I thought that was one of the big takeaways from the NewsTilt post-mortem.

runjake• 16 years ago

> True, but.....what else could replace them?

The web. more specifically, web versions of articles, like how you see news websites now. Alternatively, crowdsourcing websites, like reddit and twitter. The content quality is generally pretty low, with a surplus of editorializing but you get news quickly.

I live in a podunk area, but already most of our local journalists and our newspaper have hopped on the web bandwagon. They were actually pretty proactive about it, surprisingly.

From the number of comments posted on the sites, it appears their web editions are very, very popular. My only beef is that most of the comments are low quality, not well thought out, and/or trolls, and I wish the staff would moderate similarly to how print editions do "Letters to the editors".

My contact at the local paper indicates they regularly have "Is it time to cut out the print edition, yet?". Thus far the answer has been "no", but that "yes" day is getting pretty close.

marbletiles2• 16 years ago

Websites. Hyperlocal websites are springing up, from nationals like Patch to tiny town-focused sites. The business models aren't quite there yet in a lot of cases, and in others they can't support huge staffs, but this is true of everything from Twitter to the latest MVP here as well.

It's the journalism that matters, whether it's printed, posted, blogged or uploaded.

tdonia• 16 years ago

Our experience in CT has been different. Journalists are happy to have a place-to-work-not-print because they've been watching print die a slow death for years. They want to work with other journalists, of course, but a roomful of journalists alone isn't an especially profitable company. You need a way to publish their content and you need a way for the community to pay for the value that local content creates. Typically, local business has an interest in the proliferation of said local content, so along comes the (local) sales team. Can the math work? So far, the indications we've seen are positive, but there's much work to be done.

wdr1• 16 years ago

I want to believe that, but I have a hard time proving it to myself. Growing up, I loved to read the paper. Without cable or Internet, it was the best information source I had available.

However, when I visit home & look at the local paper now, I find it pointless. The "news" is outdated & rarely as in-depth as what I can find online. Classifieds? I'm more likely to find what I want online, if not with Craigslist, with Ebay & Amazon. Opinion & perspective? Nothing really insightful. In fact, I don't think we'd lose anything if the local reporters simply became online bloggers. Likewise, local stories & the rest. I can get a richer set simply looking at local bloggers. They don't really do investigative reporting. So that leaves local sports. But does my high school football team really need a newspaper solely because of it? In the end, I realized that my local paper of old was an unconfigurable RSS reader & not a very good one as that.

nowarninglabel2• 16 years ago

This reminds me of a Wizard of Id comic where the local paper comes in to interview the king.

Reporters: We'd like to ask you some questions on your environmental record.

King: How many trees are killed to print your paper?

-Reporters leave-

Squire: That was a quick interview.

xelipe• 16 years ago

Journalism will continue to evolve, from newspaper to television network news to blogs to Facebook pages to YouTube channels to mobile apps to whatever. We have to make the distinction that newspapers is one form of journalism. It would be sad for some if the newspapers went away, just as it was sad when the stage coach or the floppy disk gave way to better alternatives.

boredguy8• 16 years ago

"individuals who have delicate souls who are connected to each other through local communities"

Ignoring the "Delicate souls" silliness, my community hasn't been defined by the people I'm geographically near since I was 16.

alexdmoore• 16 years ago

A lot of these points are valid. We are talking about local journalism. I use the word "newspaper" to describe the business and staff which comprise the folks that are creating the content, spending time with real people face to face and creating culture. People can call this piece marketing, but I call it supporting what I believe in. The fact is that SI and other companies are finding newer and better ways for "newspapers" to thrive. This directly keeps our nation's local journalists employed which equals more boots on the ground reporting and informing us about local issues. It may be tougher for folks from large cities to make the inter-personal connection I am discussing here, but the main point is defending American culture is valuable in units of measure beyond US Dollars.

Why local newspapers are worth saving

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