Newspapers are drying up (Cops/Squeezer where you at)

[Epinephrine]

huffpo...

also i don't buy that 'criticism' or whatever will die, people eat that shit up. for some reason people on the internet love ranked lists, i mean fucking LOVE ranked lists... and critics love making them!

You're reading my post wrong.

Criticism won't die, but critic sections within newspapers will die.

When I eat out, I read reviews on Chowhound, when I want to watch a movie, I read user comments on imdb. I don't read the newspaper.

[Vykromond]

So you think professional criticism will die? Or only professional criticism in newspapers? If it's the latter, explain why there's a difference between professional criticism not in newspapers and professional criticism in newspapers (or between criticism in newspapers and other departments). If it's the former, I think you're wrong. There's plenty of room in the criticism market for both "user consensus" and professionals; certainly Metacritic, Gamerankings, and internet criticism outlets like Pitchfork do very well for themselves.

[Epinephrine]

So you think professional criticism will die? Or only professional criticism in newspapers? If it's the latter, explain why there's a difference between professional criticism not in newspapers and professional criticism in newspapers (or between criticism in newspapers and other departments). If it's the former, I think you're wrong. There's plenty of room in the criticism market for both "user consensus" and professionals; certainly Metacritic, Gamerankings, and internet criticism outlets like Pitchfork do very well for themselves.

Well if you actually read my post again, or maybe this thread, or the title of this thread, you'd know I'm talking about newspapers.

[Vykromond]

I did read your post, the only reason I used the internet as examples at the end of my previous post was that I don't have access to newspaper sectional reading metrics (I'm not really sure who does). I bet the critics in newspapers do fine in terms of attracting eyeballs though

[Epinephrine]

Simply put, newspapers used to be the only place where one could get information on professional criticism. Now as you've proved there's a million places online you can get it.

Newspapers used to be a great place to get TV listings. No more, you can get it online easier.

Newspapers used to be a great place for stock tables. No more, you can get that information in a much more informative way and easier too online.

Newspapers used to be a great place for random weekly articles on cars, on health information, entertainment news and so on. No more, there's plenty of other places to get this information.

So once you strip down newspapers of all of this 'fat' (as much as I love the Saturday/Sunday paper, it really is obsolete these days), you have what newspapers are REALLY good at, which is being a place where professional writers and journalists gather to give... news.

[Vykromond]

I just don't accept the premise that newspapers are especially good at that, either. For "news" itself, newspapers are simply strictly worse than the internet because of the time lag caused by the printing and distribution processes. That leaves editorial writing, and I don't see how that would necessarily be any better in newspapers than on the internet (and in fact, reading both extensively, can say that the internet is no worse at this either).

In this respect criticism is actually a better bet for newspapers because the time lag doesn't really matter as much (you don't need a movie review 2 minutes after it's first screened for critics, necessarily).

Hope that I made myself clearer this time.

[Cops]

Online advertisements have a major problem: they have the possibility of executing malicious code. It's a big problem, and it's getting bigger--even Google's banner ad service has an issue of advertisers slipping malware into their ads, which then gets broadcast to any sites subscribing to Google's ad service. It was a major topic at a security conference I was at just a few days ago.

And until this gets under control (will it ever?), people are going to continue to install and suggest ad- and popup-blockers, which nullify any incentive for advertisers to give up the cash. If no one sees your ad, why advertise?

We need a solution, and so far no one's come up with the sane one of "we make/publish your ads, so if anyone's responsible for malicious code inside of them, we are." No one's stepping up. Oversight is necessary.

There are ways of forcing people to watch your advertisements if you they want the content for free. Like I said before, you can add in advertisements in the form of mp4's, WMV's etc to the beginning of your news pack. That pretty much solves broadcast content, however like you said advertisements on the actual news site is a little more ticky to solve/control.

I'm about 95% sure I got an internship at Mississauga News, which is an affiliate of Metroland. They're only taking two interns, that's two people out of thousands of graduating media, communication, print journalists, and broadcast students. The guy who said he'd take me just wants to quickly check my resume tomorrow, but he said right now I'm in he just needs to do a quick once over of my qualifications. booyah!

[Epinephrine]

I just don't accept the premise that newspapers are especially good at that, either. For "news" itself, newspapers are simply strictly worse than the internet because of the time lag caused by the printing and distribution processes. That leaves editorial writing, and I don't see how that would necessarily be any better in newspapers than on the internet (and in fact, reading both extensively, can say that the internet is no worse at this either).

In this respect criticism is actually a better bet for newspapers because the time lag doesn't really matter as much (you don't need a movie review 2 minutes after it's first screened for critics, necessarily).

Hope that I made myself clearer this time.

Newspapers are really the only things with the organization and the money and the format necessary for really good newsgathering which is somewhat timely. While some 'news' needs to be at the moment, there are other things which can wait a day or two, but would benefit greatly from the more in-depth coverage that newspapers would offer. Television and video type news are really good for 'up-to-date' and 'breaking' news where there are few known facts, but lots of pictures to show.

Some magazines are good like The Atlantic, Harper's, The New Yorker, etc, but those are inherently less 'up to date'. Meanwhile individual websites are usually the work of lone bloggers or lone people with limited reach.

TV meanwhile is not that great because things are not in depth, the very nature of TV is that you only have so much time to say so many words, and when watching a video instead of reading something you are inherently thinking less about it.

The internet can be good, i.e. newspapers on the internet, but I view newspapers on the internet still as a form of the 'newspaper', and not my idea of the 'new media of the future', which would be less monolithic organization, and more loose association of independent and small groups of writers that contribute to a larger organization using the power of the internet.

As large newsgathering organizations, I believe the only way 'newspapers' can survive is two-fold. One is harness the power of the internet to reach their audience in a cheaper and timely manner that daily printing does not. And secondly, it is to focus on their core, which is the professional gathering and writing of news, something that other types of media really just don't do nearly as well.

For the forseeable future, there is still a place for an actual physical paper (not everyone uses the internet, and when you're taking public transit, on an airplane, in a waiting room or whatever it's still nicer to have a paper than be tapping away on a heavy laptop or reading from a small iphone type screen). Perhaps in the further future there will be no need for that.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

mp4's, WMV's

Not to be a dick, but those are just as easily trojan horses. Format isn't necessarily a silver bullet.

[Zerzera]

Not to be a dick, but those are just as easily trojan horses. Format isn't necessarily a silver bullet.

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[DankNuggets]

I guess it depends on the newspaper you read, and the types of news you're interested in.

If you're strictly into national news or something like USA Today, then yeah, I could see how it's basically the same content you can find for free on the internet.

But I think a majority of Americans aren't buying papers like that, but are buying their local papers.

There are certain things i've noticed since i've been starting to read the paper online:

1) you can't find previous content easily. In fact, they used to charge you to view content that was over a week old. Not that a whole lot of people would be looking for older news, but I know several people who don't buy a subscription, but just pick up the paper if they hear about a good article. Or, they buy it for the ads (sunday papers) and real estate/auto sections.

2) hardly any point in using it for business (not that i do/would anyway) since you can find all that stuff online at specialized sites.

3) comics, obits, letters to editors, crosswords, etc. are simply much better on ink than on a computer screen. Not to mention these are a lot of the things people will buy a weekday paper for, just to waste some time on.

4) accessibility- depending on your market, you might not have a local news team, or any websites that you can find local news on. many small town papers that don't print daily aren't being run off by the internet, because their content isn't found online.

5)our free paper is fucking awesome, has a cult following, and only comes out once a week. papers like this feature those indepth, obscure news. lots of local politics and information on restaurants, shows, etc. Because it's free, people don't really see the need to go online where it's harder to find stuff, there's incomplete information, and you can't take it with you.

I guess it just depends on their market, but if they're relying on a huge subscription base--- as opposed to people who just buy it out of a machine --- then they're probably going to go downhill. Sooner or later people won't want to pay more and more for info that's increasing available online. But i think the people who aren't committing to subscriptions, that are buying to waste the time or check out an article, will continue to buy papers, because they are more convenient at the time. Whether or not that will generate enough revenue to keep them afloat, idk.

[Cops]

Not to be a dick, but those are just as easily trojan horses. Format isn't necessarily a silver bullet.

The format of the advertisement doesn't really matter, all I was saying is that an editor could get handed a tape with a 20-30 second advertisement and include it into the front of the piece he plans on editing. That way when you go on to a news site and click on an online video, the first thing you see is the advertisement which is followed by the actual news piece.

Hell, big news websites have a system setup that streams video in a particular order. All you have to do is put in a few advertisements inbetween news stories and you've just created a revenue stream. The free dailies haven't all caught on to this idea, but eventually they will.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

Hell, big news websites have a system setup that streams video in a particular order. All you have to do is put in a few advertisements inbetween news stories and you've just created a revenue stream. The free dailies haven't all caught on to this idea, but eventually they will.

"Big websites" don't do their own advertising, though--I think that's where we're not connecting. They basically set up a pointer that goes out to other sites and slurps the ads. For something like this to work, your web news company would have to have it's own in-house advertising agency who did all your stuff in-house, thereby guaranteeing malware-free content. And that wouldn't be cheap (considering there would be programmers, artists, other creative types, etc).

[Cops]

"Big websites" don't do their own advertising, though--I think that's where we're not connecting. They basically set up a pointer that goes out to other sites and slurps the ads. For something like this to work, your web news company would have to have it's own in-house advertising agency who did all your stuff in-house, thereby guaranteeing malware-free content. And that wouldn't be cheap.

Not necessarily, advertisers call local papers and ask to advertise in their paper all the time. For an additional cost, you will include an advertisement in your online newscast. Let's say a hockey arena wants to advertise in the paper and they've agreed to pay an additional amount then all you need to do is get an image or logo of that company, throw it in photoshop and add contact information. Save the file, open it in finalcut. Grab some music and spend literally under 2 minutes making a basic advertisement.

People call papers all the time and want to advertise, offering them the ability to advertise online will turn some heads. Advertisement dollars don't always come from big business, small business want to advertise in their local community.

[Money]

Metro is a paper that originated in Stockholm and it is the largest newspaper world wide (acknowledged so by the Guinness book of records). It can be found all over Europe, parts of Asia and all over America (the continent, just in case you didn't get that).

O OK MY BAD DAWG, THOUGHT U MEANT A TORONTO NEWSPAPER FOR SOME REASON LOL