Yesterday's announcement that our local newspaper is cutting back to three print editions per week should not have been a surprise to anyone. Most people get their news online these days. I haven't had a newspaper delivered here in years, except for some promotional copies that I didn't want. Print media of every kind is dying. In a few years, there will be no more books, newspapers, magazines. For better or worse, electronic media is replacing it.
Electronic media has big challenges, too. I finally hit the New York Times pay firewall yesterday. Don't care. I'll look elsewhere for material. I don't think their model is going to work until a lot of consolidation happens. Personally, I don't think there is enough advertising and subscription revenue in that market to support more than a few outlets. That business used to be cutthroat. We've entered the next level.
5 song iTunes shuffle:
- America - Simon & Garfunkel - Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits
- In This Place - Robin Trower - Bridge Of Sighs
- Heading Out To The Highway (Live) - Judas Priest - Living After Midnight
- Baba O'Riley - The Who - Who's Next
- War Pigs/Luke's Wall - Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Quote of the Day
Anybody who has had the pleasure of living in New Orleans and working at The Picayune feels like there's always a tie there. Even though I've been gone almost 18 years, it continues to be the place that shaped me the most professionally and the place for which I have the most affection.
Rebecca Theim
Blog of the day is here.
Quote from said blog: "The Times-Picayune, a 175-year-old fixture in New Orleans and a symbol of the city’s gritty resilience during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, has buckled under the pressures of the modern newspaper market."
My first real exposure to the Times-Picayune was during Katrina. Their reporting and the forums they put up for people to post to were the only real info about what was going on beyond New Orleans proper. It made a huge difference.
Their Katrina coverage was outstanding. It was put together by people who knew the city, had traveled the streets, had eaten in the restaurants, had used the services. That perspective set it apart.
Someday, I think we're going to have to start calling these online newspapers something else. :)
Not surprising, but still shocking.
When I was a kid, Marie, we had the Times-Picayune delivered in the morning and the States-Item delivered in the afternoon. Both of those papers were the results of mergers from two other papers. They then merged. We've gone from four newspapers down to about half of one and I don't think that half is long for the Earth. Yeah, shocking is a good description.