how the failing newspaper industry shot itself in the foot..

[gh]

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12004641

[Marlow]

Indeed.

My current pet peeve is the infinitesimalization of the Sunday comix. My favorite, Zits, was THIS big (4" wide) in the Sunday paper. :evil:

[SQUACKEE]

Indeed.

My current pet peeve is the infinitesimalization of the Sunday comix. My favorite, Zits, was THIS big (4" wide) in the Sunday paper. :evil:

I love Zits! Just to know that some else knows the suffering of living with a teenage boy makes me smile. Wet towel? Throw it on the floor! :x

[tandfman]

Forget the comics. The troubled state of the newspaper industry is a serious matter.

Here's a column from yesterday's NYTimes about the problems facing the SFChron:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/busin ... nicle.html


And today, the Chicago Sun-Times filed for bankrupcty protection. (The Chicago Tribune is already in bankruptcy.)

http://www.suntimes.com/business/150394 ... 09.article

This is not good.

[gh]

<<....Media analysts and current and former Hearst executives lay some blame on moves by the company and the previous owners, the de Young family — particularly a damaging 35-year partnership with a smaller paper, The Examiner, whose effects are still felt years after it was dissolved....>>

huh? I could be wrong, but it was always my understanding that until the business climate went completely toxic and the rules changed, the "damaging partnership" was forced on them by anti-monopoly regulations that wouldn't let them merge the two papers when it obvioius is was the only solution.

[gm]

Forget the comics? FORGET THE COMICS???
What are you, some kind of neanderthal?
There's no other reason to buy the paper any more. And it's also why I never bother with the NYT. If you ain't got comics, you ain't worth bothering with!

:lol:

[tandfman]

One of the problems that newspapers face these days is that you don't need them to read the comics. I get a link to the daily Dilbert strip e-mailed to me every day. It's free and it comes in the middle of the night. I log on in the morning and there it is. I don't even have to go outside and pick the the newspapers up from the driveway.

I can also read online much of the content of one of the two newspapers I get delivered every day. The other paper actually has more editorial content on its web site than it does in its print edition. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see where all of this seems to be headed.

[Marlow]

Forget the comics? FORGET THE COMICS???
What are you, some kind of neanderthal?
There's no other reason to buy the paper any more. And it's also why I never bother with the NYT. If you ain't got comics, you ain't worth bothering with!
:lol:

Aha - our minds have melded! :P
When I'm in a hurry in the morning, here's how I read the paper:

1. Front section - Scan front page for obvious stuff, skip rest of first section.
2. Financial section - Spend 4 nanoseconds on headlines, also checking the price of silver and gold (my only substantial holdings (yeah, I know, I'm an idiot there))
3. Sports section - read first graf in about 6 articles, make mental note to read further that evening, which, of course, I won't - I'll be reading it all tonight in USA Today anyway); look at all the HS sports agate, esp. local prep track meets.
4. Life section - read any TV/movie news of interest, scan the TV listings for the evening, and then read every single comic that I always read, to wit - off the top of my head

Zits
Hagar
Lockhorns
Blondie
Garfield
Brevity
Non-sequitur
BC
Beetle Bailey

etc.

One of the problems that newspapers face these days is that you don't need them to read the comics. I get a link to the daily Dilbert strip e-mailed to me every day.

Not the same!
:evil:

[gm]

My order:

1. Sports, even though I hate all pro sports except track mostly looking for local stories about T&Fers

2. City/State section with obits

3. Business in case there is a tech column, or to yell at the greedy bastiges who steal from us

4. And then, best of all, the much-awaited......Comics!!!

front page? bleh

[bad hammy]

Same order every day:

1. Entertainment/comics/etc. (they call it Datebook here)
2. Local
3. Business
4. Front page section
5. Sports (best for last)

No shortcuts - every morning 90 minutes is set aside for this.

[gh]

I've had to develop a bit of a new routine because the SF Chron, which has been my fishwrap of choice for 40 years, has rearranged some things as it goes into its death spiral. But like Hammy I'm pretty set in my ways.

1. Read front-page headlines whilst carrying in from the driveway (trying not to trip over the dog and cat who follow me in and out, eagerly awaiting their morning bacon).

2. Take sports page out to the hot tub and unlax for half an hour. This includes doing the weather, which is now on the back of the sports section. (Hey, gotta know when the next full moon is; can't wait for April 9th!).

3. Read front-page section during breakfast, sometimes starting at the back where the Op-Ed material is.

4. Read local section, again sometimes starting at back where they have business stashed (hey, Euro back down to $1.31 again!). Sometimes w/ breakfast, sometimes not until lunch.

5. Read entertainment/comics. This usually gets done the next weekend when I read a whole week's worth. Comix are funnier when the sequence is tighter if they're serializing, which many do.

[TrackDaddy]

A zillion cable/satellite channels, the internet, satellite radio, and basically information overload helped to cripple them too.

Joker dont have time to read the paper. ops:

Some days by the time I open the newspaper its the 3rd time I've seen the same story.

The obits are usually new to me though.

[tandfman]

I confess I'm with TrackDaddy. I'm online much of the time when I'm home, and I frequently check news sites. By the time I get the newspaper in the morning, I've read most of what interests me. And I must also confess that, like TrackDaddy, one of the things I always read in print is the obituaries.

The exception to my news-online habit is the Wall Street Journal. Because a good deal of their content is not free online (and I don't pay for the online subscription), I don't usually visit their web site, and so everything is new when I get the paper in the morning. On the other hand, not being a financial professional, there's an awful lot in the WSJ that I never read.

[Marlow]

The problem I'm seeing with the young generation is that they don't read any newspaper because they are so used to getting whatever they need on-line. But they only look at whatever they are already interested in, so their focus is so narrow, they are oblivious to some pretty significant developments outside of i-tunes and what happened to Lindsey Lohan yesterday. As more and more content is provided only on-demand, we become more and more insular in our perspectives. When I read the paper, I end up reading many articles that I didn't even know I would have some interest in before I opened the paper!

[tandfman]

When I read the paper, I end up reading many articles that I didn't even know I would have some interest in before I opened the paper!

Good point. And a reminder to me to actually read the paper every day even though I've looked at the home page of the paper and much of the inside content on line.