This Picture Says 1,000 Words
by Ben Golliver on Feb 26, 2009 11:48 AM PST
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Check it out for yourself. Is this really happening? The San Francisco Chronicle is also teetering. The Seattle P-I too.
The future is now?
-- Ben (benjamin.golliver@gmail.com)
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I guess you could say...
It’s been a rocky year for them.
yeah pretty ironic sbnation crashes while i put that up lol
by Ben Golliver on Feb 26, 2009 12:09 PM PST up reply actions
hahahah
it was pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8DgWnbVng&feature=bz303
MVP *** MVP *** MVP
I've never scored more than 38 ..... not even in Little League.
Mother Earth is smiling
I’m more concerned about the paper and ink industries. Seriously though, what is the environmental impact of papers going away?
I da man!
I once read...
that the Sunday papers in America cost 50 forests. I have no idea how large a forest is. That being said, I used to love the Rocky Mountain News. I think it’s a bit sad.
"You are never (fanatically) dedicated to something you have complete confidence in." Robert Pirsig
the ratio of papers to forests
is the same as that of unicorns to leprechauns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8DgWnbVng&feature=bz303
MVP *** MVP *** MVP
I've never scored more than 38 ..... not even in Little League.
What about the gas to deliver papers?
I think the job loss is the worst part. It’s like typewriter repairmen on an extreme epic tragic level. The cleaning company that hired janitors to clean that newspaper building is going to have to lay people off. It’s like an economic bomb going off in every major city in America.
I da man!
The internet killed the newspaper star
It’s a little sad but not very surprising. How long do you think the Oregonian has? It’s been getting thinner and thinner.
Hello Dum Dum
Craigslist killed the newspaper star....
Here in town, those of us who subscribe to the Oregonian have certainly noticed a) the paper getting slimmer, and b) the price going up. It’s a BAD time to be in the newspaper business.
Quick dropped a tidbit that the other day that pressures on columnists to attract readers are increasing. For a beat reporter like JQ, who is not supposed to be overly sensational—this can’t be good news.
The Tribune a while back got rid of Kerry Eggers, then Dwight Jaynes. Their Blazer coverage has gone downhill—do they even have a Blazer beat writer any more?
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 12:34 PM PST reply actions
eggers still writes for the trib about the blazers. jaynes resigned.
by Ben Golliver on Feb 26, 2009 12:37 PM PST up reply actions
My bad...
for some reason I though Kerry had left too.
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 12:37 PM PST up reply actions
This only interests me
in relation to what the future holds for the Oregonian, and their coverage of the Blazers. If the Oregonian and oregonlive.com dissapeared tommorow how much would you miss Quick and Sean and that bald guy?
by neutroticblazerfan on Feb 26, 2009 12:36 PM PST reply actions
I would shed a tear for Quick and Sean.
not so sure about Canzano… really don’t like most of his writing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8DgWnbVng&feature=bz303
MVP *** MVP *** MVP
I've never scored more than 38 ..... not even in Little League.
Ok I have to say one little thing
This news actually does interest me, but I’m a stickler for staying on topic, so I wish Ben would’ve at least posed the question “How would you react to the Oregonian closing” for this post to stay somewhat on-topic.
With that said, I have no sentimental attachment to newspaper, so it doesn’t really make me sad. I do awe at it like a dinosaur, which was once so dominant and powerful dying. Kind of like what happened to Polaroid cameras and pay phones.
As for how I would react to the Oregonian going belly up, I wouldn’t be that devastated. Because what does the Oregonian provide for me? The Quick/somebody else recaps, which are always informative and well written but I could get by with the AP and Dave recap. Sean’s blog is pretty good and he posts tidbits and links which I would miss, but nothing critical. Then there’s the occasional very in-depth articles that Quick writes, a piece on a player/coach, the birds-eye-view on the state of the franchise, a look at the business/non-sports side of the Blazers business. But there are a lot of times I’m just annoyed at the Oregonian’s coverage and their dumb feuds with the Blazers. Not saying the Blazers were blameless but the O was def the more aggravating party. My problem is so often, they do some expose on the Blazers like their blowing the lid of Enron or some nuclear plant dumping toxic waste. Do I really need some 9 page piece on Qyntel’s dogs or how Steve Patterson was a jerk?
by neutroticblazerfan on Feb 26, 2009 1:08 PM PST up reply actions
i’ve been writing about the newspaper industry’s problems for some time. that’s been a topic here.
by Ben Golliver on Feb 26, 2009 1:25 PM PST up reply actions
Google Chrome?
Nice. And Its sad that newspapers are dying, but I think eventually it could be a good thing. We could end up with a couple of large newspapers doing good journalism, with advertising subsidizing that. That’s how it worked back in the day, according to Slate.com. The internet has messed that system up, but eventually some newspaper will hit on a system that works well, and they’ll all take to it like bees to honey.
What is killing the newspapers
is not competition from the Internet for reporting, or declining subscriptions—but the loss of the advertising business.
The biggest moneymaker for the newspapers has long been advertising—both display adds (those things mixed in with the articles) and classifieds. Classified rates have long been in the buck-a-word rate—you can do the math and see how much money it brought in. It was a nice combo—adds brought in money which was used to create compelling and useful content by hiring reporters and columnists; and this content gave the newspapers a decided advantage over the nickel ads and other publications containing nothing but advertising.
Then came things like Cragslist and eBay. Craigslist gives you a searchable, FREE, classified ad system—people looking to find lost pets or sell huge pianos no longer need to pay a buck a word to the newspaper. (eBay provides a different service, but also replaces the classifieds). Likewise, google has hurt the display ad business, and with the recession, many advertisers are cutting back.
Newsprint and ink are expensive, as are editors, reporters, and columnists—and subscription fees don’t begin to cover the cost.
The interesting part is—who and what will pay the salaries of reporters, and lend them institutional cred? Ben and Dave have a good thing going here—but what would happen were they to report something that the Blazers don’t like and have their credentials yanked and given to a hypothetical competing blogger? With an institutional newspaper, other organizations (companies, politicians) kind of HAVE to deal with them and the reporters they send by; but I’m not sure the Blazers HAVE to deal with BlazersEdge. This is probably a bigger problem with politics than with sports (where coverage is more important)—what if the only hardcore reporters covering politics are partisan axe-grinders who can be safely dismissed as such? Might we go back to the days of yellow journalism, where newspapers (including the Oregonian) were openly partisan scandal-sheets which offered lots of propoganda but little in the ways of reasonable analysis?
I’m sure something will arise to replace the modern newspaper. But I don’t know what.
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 12:47 PM PST up reply actions
what if the only hardcore reporters covering politics are partisan axe-grinders who can be safely dismissed as such?
You mean they aren’t?
Believe it or not...
some reporters are professionals who try to do their job.
I’m not talking about the blowhards who show up on the editorial page and the cable talk shows; I’m talking about the guys who write news articles on the subject of politics—national, local, state, whatever.
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 4:07 PM PST up reply actions
We've been there for quite some time.
The largepapers and now many local newspapers are owned by the same
8-10 GIANT news companies. They are increasingly left wing, as most so
called journalists/edititorial staff come from that perspective. Basically,
most papers have become psuedo college newspapers writing anti-American,
anti-business propaganda. Since that is the case, why would businesses want
to support/advertise in that medium.
It's GO time !
Not specifically companies . . .
but the editorial staff they hire come from the pool
of left leaning editors/journalists, etc. The primary point
is that the smaller locally owned paper has fast disappeared
and therefore the independance of local news reporting.
Our local paper is stocked purely with AP national news stories
and editiorials from the LA Times, NY Times or the Washington
Post, all three far left wing papers. State news comes almost exclusively
from the Oregonian. The giant companies, like Newscorp owns hundreds
of papers, but is finding out it is a dying business.
It's GO time !
I think it's a little more complicated.
Journalists lean to the left, just like people in most educated professions do. However, their bosses and owners lean to the right, just like most business people. So (and of course this is a generalization) you have a situation where the people writing the stories are liberal, but the people controlling them are conservative. On the whole, I think it leads mostly to fairly moderate reporting, albeit with plenty of counterexamples. I would argue that most counterexamples are on the right, as it’s more common to have a conservative journalist then a liberal owner/executive.
Valid points . . .
but don’t forget many of these news corporations
are not operated like start-up profit and loss businesses,
because many were inherited. Hearst is one example.
There is a large difference in the political leaning of
inherited $ and earned success.
More importantly, in the case of newspaper/ magazines,
once the Publisher hires an editior, they generally have no
day to day influence of how information is treated. In this case
my example is the Medford Mail Tribune. I’ve read the paper since
the time I was 14-15 (mostly sports early) until about 45 and
have seen primarily all AP stories. The paper used to use wire
service information and excerpts, with local interpretation / story.
Not since NewsCorp bought the paper years back. I know hundreds
of people in my area that will not buy the paper or advertise anymore
due to the content and tone.
I’ve been in the billboard business since 1993 and it has been
consistant all along. It’s different, as no opinion or slant comes with
purchasing advertising space. Well, unless the message is
"Dear Mr. Paul Allen . . . ".
It's GO time !
...
Basically,
most papers have become psuedo college newspapers writing anti-American,
anti-business propaganda.
I just couldn’t possibly disagree with that statement more than I do. I think the opposite is true and that most newspapers (as well as TV, radio, etc.) are dominated by right-wing propaganda.
But you are entitled to your opinion and I don’t want to start a political diatribe on a sports blog… thus the brevity of my original post.
And those couple of newspapers could be owned by Rupert Murdoch.
They could be dedicated to spreading propaganda rather than dedicated to truthful reporting.
I don’t see a consoldidated media as being anything but disasterous for our country. I also think a completely decentralized quasi-professional media system an equally bad idea.
Spanish Main: The point of departure for enormous wealth in the form of gold, silver, gems, spices, hardwoods, hides, alley-oops, assists and three pointers.
by LaughingJon on Feb 26, 2009 12:47 PM PST up reply actions
was and is
Only a matter of time till they all go paperless it only makes sense when you think of the cost to print and deliver and or sell a actual newspaper. I have pretty much converted to my morning coffee and computer news but I will miss the fire starter capabilities of the daily rag.
Mark Cuban had an idea for this problem
http://blogmaverick.com/2008/12/24/why-pro-sports-need-newspapers/
Gist of the idea is create a “ESPN Insider” type of service for sports sections.
by neutroticblazerfan on Feb 26, 2009 12:48 PM PST reply actions
I heard a newspaper executive the other day saying the print media had themselves to blame
He said that back when the Reagan administration began slashing funding for public schools, the newspapers should have raised a stink. They should have recognized the implications for democracy—which depends on an educated electorate to function properly. And from a selfish standpoint, they should have recognized the implications for print media—which depend on a population that reads.
Certainly, Craig’s List has delivered the fatal blow to newspapers by taking away their classified advertising revenue. But, at least according to this newspaper man (sorry—I don’t recall his name), the seeds for the demise of the newspapers were sown long before the internet came along.
"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla
That is a really poor argument
by that person. First literacy is not the problem, we proabably read more newspapers more than ever. I mean our ancestors read one, two local papers at most, nowadays people read dozens of newspapers, from various states, countries, etc. Secondly even if that literacy was the problem, how could the newspapers have that much foresight to know that less funding for schools would result in THEIR demise.
by neutroticblazerfan on Feb 26, 2009 1:15 PM PST up reply actions
Thirdly, the federal government doesn't pay very much for schools
State and local governments foot like 90% of the bill for public education.
So if Reagan “slashed” funding for school, whatever “slashed” means—say, 30-50% decreases— then that would only be a few percentage points of reduction in total education spending.
The Department of Education has grown quite a bit lately, but it’s still not much.
These school systems received $488.5 billion in 2005, up from $462.7 billion the previous year. Of the total, 47 percent came from state governments, 43.9 percent from local sources and 9.1 percent from the federal government.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/010125.html
true that....most if it comes from taxes imposed by the city.
Want more aggressiveness? Try less Baylesslessness.
Awww dang...
I’m getting into the wrong profession. Lousy Journalism degree!
The inbound to McGinnis, drives, stops, pumps, shoots, short, no good...AND THE GAME IS OVER! ~ Bill Schonely
by SandbergOnSports on Feb 26, 2009 1:10 PM PST reply actions
It's easy to convert a lot of jokes to your expense.
How do you get a guy with a Journalism degree off your porch?
I da man!
Pay him for the pizza?
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 4:07 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
Really, it's expected in this economy.
And what’s more, there is already another major newspaper in the city. Now if this was the sole major newspaper in the town, and it went under, that would be another story.
Yes! Yes! In the face!
Is broadcast media taking over (so called) print media?
It seems like the news sources that are successfully transitioning to the net and have successful revenue streams from it are broadcast orgs like ESPN, CBS (sorta), CNN, Fox and so on. They can subsidize the transition with their broadcast revenues, and their success on the web makes their all up advertising pitch more compelling to their customers. Maybe the KGWs take over the world of local journalism in written form..?
It's a dying medium...
For a couple reasons, and I’ll cite my own personal examples.
1. I can get the same product for “free”. I can read the news, shop for cars, find a new house, exorbinate priced blazer tickets, online. Essentially, the money I may have once paid for a newspaper subscription, I pay for internet service and I get A LOT of product for my dollar.
2. I have mostly lost interest in the news. I’m probably in the minority here, but I really don’t care about most things. The stories reported by the media typically aren’t unique enough or relevant enough to my interests for me to have the thought “OMG! I have to get a copy of the Oregonian so I can read that!” My sad pathetic news consumption is the front page of yahoo. TV news is typically so sensationalized I can’t stand it anymore.
3. The remainder of people who are still reading the paper aren’t the target market that advertisers are looking for. I know of no 20-30yo males who read the paper every morning (apparently, we’re a highly desirable demographic). I know for the business that I work for, we advertise in the Oregonian and we hate it. We hate the horrible prices, we hate the crappy results. The cost/benefit is rarely beneficial. Why we’re still doing it is completely beyond me, but I guess that’s why I’m a mere peon with a computer, not an advertising manager.
If our major newspaper wants to prevent themselves from becoming rocky mountain, they better do something better than oregonlive.com. If you develop a premium news product online that’s easy to use, has interactivity with the community and delivers better, more complete content, you might still be able to make money in the subscription business. ’Til that happens you better figure out a way to get that cost/benefit for advertisers back to being beneficial. Because the doors will close much sooner now that everything is in the tank.
We should all be a little bit scared by this...
at least as participants in a democracy. I am a firm believer that an independent media is critical to an effective democracy. They serve to keep those in power (reasonably) honest and on their toes. They have played the role relatively well over the 220+ years the US has been in existence. While there have been peaks and valleys, as a whole, the system has served the country well.
It was the large newspapers that could devote the resources to good investigative journalism, taking on corporations as well as local, state and federal government.
Bloggers are all well and fine, but they absolutely will not have the resources to do this. And government, without a public watchdog, will become more emboldened to ignore the people.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1787
why do you have to print things on paper
in order to “take on the corporations and government” ???
The market does not desire printed news items anymore. Therefore, they don’t have the resources you say is need to devote to investigations. Since consumers don’t want the printed papers, who do you want to pay for them to have the resources? Corporations (like Mark Cuban suggests)? Governments? Seems like both of those scenarios would defeat the whole “independent” aspect.
I don’t have a solution, but I don’t think trying to prop up newspapers is a good idea.
It would be cheaper for the NY Times to distribute free Amazon Kindle e-book readers to all its long-term subscribers (ca. 800,000 that have been with it for more than 2 years) than print and distribute it one more year
It is published that way anyway already, you can get it even earlier already every day in the middle of the night. As soon as Apple enters the market with a nicer device e-books will get another boost (either joining forces with Amazon, or there are rumors they have also been digitizing books for a long long time). And in a few years when the screens get one or two generations better (thinner and bigger, longer battery life, better contrast), say goodbye to many things printed on paper. For some magazines, expensive textbooks you only use for one semester, etc. it just makes more business sense to publish them as an electronic product. Maybe in combination with the same text as an audio book (which works better for longer and non-technical prose). If you like podcasts, you are halfway there. It’s great.
Amazon already owns Audible and works on getting everything ever published in audio and e-book form. Go figure where the journey is heading.
Brandon is one of those quiet assassins. - Chris Paul
Been on the brink...
The RM News here in Denver has been teetering on the brink for awhile now. Two paper towns are not really able to stand anymore.
The Denver Post is still going … how strong? I think they’ll be okay and they hired some 5% of the Rocky’s staff to attract some Rocky readers (popular columnists and reporters).
Scary times though. Denver loses some good coverage for our sports here in town with less competition around and less angles.
One interesting thing about the Denver papers
is both had political leans—the RMN leaning conservative if I recall, and the Post more liberal.
Similar in SF, with the right-leaning Examiner and the left-leaning Chronicle.
There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.
by EngineerScotty on Feb 26, 2009 4:09 PM PST up reply actions
I received
about my fourteenth 2009 “phone book” today and commented to the cat “how many trees did that take?” Weird that this should come up on the same day.
I’m a newspaper junkie, I would miss it and I think I’d be a lesser person (less knowledgeable) without one. They made me aware of so many things that I would never bother to look up online (or even know to look up.) I guess that maybe I’m not so much a newspaper junkie, but an information junkie (or intellectually curious) and it was nice to have so much in one place. This old dog is going to have to learn some new tricks (like how to turn on the tv) or else just specialize in a few things that interest me and ignore the rest. I’ll never be a reference librarian again so I really don’t have to know a little bit about everything – but that’s hard to swallow.
"He made everybody's job easy," Aldridge said of Blake. "All we had to do was finish." 02/22/09
I understand completely
Every single day I stumble across an article in the paper that I never would’ve thought to look up online. The New York Times has a pretty decent electronic version, but it’s NOTHING compared to curling up on the couch and spending an hour and a half with the Sunday Times, exploring new ideas and issues. Ditto for local papers — if the Oregonian goes under, I’ll never get up to speed on the little stories that are an important part of civic life. I can only hope that public radio will fill the gap, since I have no faith in TV news.
Ever Tried An RSS Reader?
You might find you like it – it basically aggregates information from different sites, so you can check it when you want to see what’s been posted recently.
I find interesting links to topics I never would have thought about from random blogs, and by adding those links to my reader, I find even more. It might take some getting used to, but I’ve found I rarely have to go searching the net, stuff gets delivered to me now.
So it’s essentially the same model as reading your copy of The Oregonian, it’d just be reading sections in your RSS reader of OregonLive.com. While The Oregonian might be in danger of going under, I doubt that OregonLive.com is going to go anywhere anytime soon.
by pcrackenhead on Feb 26, 2009 5:29 PM PST up reply actions
RSS readers have their place
I went kind of crazy with them for a while, but then I ended up sitting in front of the computer managing more information than I wanted to. Scanning a newspaper is much quicker, and it fits into family life more easily than zoning out in front of the computer. (One of my goals in life is to spend less time on the computer.) Currently, OregonLive.com — like many web sites — is ugly, clumsy and incomplete, so I rarely go there.
P.S. Jorga
I really like your new avatar. I’m going to show it to my husband tonight; he’s on a real owl kick these days.
The mainstream media, newspapers included, sold their integrity for
corporate largesse a long time ago. They deserve to die.
This whole phenomena is really sad.
I actually wanted to pursue journalism as my degree, but the decline of the newspaper has caused me to change my focus to more computer-oriented stuff—web design, programming, graphic and video work, etc.
There just isn’t a lot of money out there for sports journalists.
People don’t want static information—they want blogs that are constantly updated and where there is fan interaction. Part of makes Bedge so successful is that it allows for people to interact, post their own thoughts via the sidebar, AND it’s constantly updated by Ben and Dave. The newspaper is only good for a day or two—then it’s outdated….ESPECIALLY when dealing with our ever-changing economic news or constantly-needing-updated sports news.
Want more aggressiveness? Try less Baylesslessness.
Sad
I know that times change, but there is no better way to start a morning in my mind than a good cup of coffee, breakfast, and an Oregonian. I would miss the latter of those three things tremendously.
An admission: After the OKC game, I said some things. Stupid things. Things about Nate not knowing how to coach GO. It was only then I realized that I was in danger of becoming that which I most loathe - an uninformed, knee jerk fan who reacts to wins with wild delusions of championships and losses with trade and firing fodder. I will not be that fan. From this point on I will support the Blazers, the coaches and front office wholeheartedly, offering praise and criticism appropriate to the matter at hand. I will never again be "that guy".
Blazeraddict
2/9/2009
How does the Denver Post and Woody Paige stay in buisness?
Yet the Rocky Mountain News can’t find a way to make it. Fate is a cruel mistress.
Still trying to figure out the C value paradox...
by Sexual Tyrannosaurus on Feb 26, 2009 10:08 PM PST reply actions
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