Category / Read

“But I think it more enlightening to flip that question, and ask again: Can newspapers survive without the communities they need to sustain them?”

“NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — We’re seeing the newspaper business collapse in slow motion, but what will replace it? That’s the question behind a wave of start-ups trying to find a new model for local journalism.”

“Hyperlocal websites, both existing and those to launch will thrive as they become the only place to find community news; in 2009 community newspapers will fold in record numbers.”

“In the debate about the future of news production in a networked age,  the question of the moderately local (or rather, the question of the neither “big” nor “hyperlocal”) remains the great unanswered question.”

“Media General’s Tampa news outlets have been leaders on the path towards integrated newsrooms for years. Now, as the financial situation at American newspapers weakens, the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and television station WFLA 8 have used essential cuts in staff numbers and resources as an opportunity to go a step further in creating a completely…

“Various ideas to overhaul the business model of newspapers have been debated in recent weeks, such as the possibility of a return to paid online content, or a non-profit endowment scheme. Both have potential, but both are long term solutions that would take some time to implement, and for the immediate crisis at hand, could…

“The warnings and elegies for the big-city newspaper have been done to the point of exhaustion, and I don’t want to beat a breaking-down horse of a medium that I actually like. But the picture keeps worsening. Yearly ad falloffs at many such places are accelerating past 15%. At sundry recent points I’ve mistaken some…

“A lot of research can go into a piece of reporting, and in print the value of that research can only be passed on through brief quotes or references. But on the web, no longer limited by finite column inches, newsrooms can create huge value for readers by providing links to the source material that…

“One reason mainstream news organizations haven’t embraced the concepts may be that the spirit (if not the letter) of the cit-j discussion tends to focus on the people involved rather than the news being covered. That is, the tonal takeaway is often something like “Who needs professional journalists? Throw the useless bums out of their…

“With all the debate over the future of newspapers, here’s a question I haven’t heard anybody ask (much less answer): If a metropolitan newspaper suddenly ceased to publish, leaving the city with no newspaper, what would happen to all of that newspaper’s ad dollars?”