 Scripps executive delivering bad news and good news. The good news is that his schwanz is huge.
|
Rocky Mountain News to close, publish final edition Friday : Rocky for sale : The Rocky Mountain News — This year will be the death knell for paper after paper.
Executives from E.W. Scripps Co., announce their decision on the future of the Rocky Mountain News in the 150-year-old newspaper’s newsroom on 2/26/09 in Denver. In December 2008, the Rocky’s parent company put the paper up for sale, citing multi-million dollar annual losses.
The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper tomorrow. Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper’s future.
“People are in grief,” Editor John Temple said a noon news conference.
But he was intent on making sure the Rocky’s final edition, which would include a 52-page wraparound section, was as special as the paper itself. “This is our last shot at this,” Temple said at a second afternoon gathering at the newsroom. “This morning (someone) said it’s like playing music at your own funeral. It’s an opportunity to make really sweet sounds or blow it. I’d like to go out really proud.”
Found by Wayne Bronikowski.
Much as I hate to see thousands, perhaps millions of trees destroyed each year for no good purpose, I grew up reading newspapers and I would miss them terribly if they went away. Browsing the local paper from cover to cover is the best way I know to learn about what’s going on locally, nationally and world-wide. Given the current state of media web design, the web is nowhere close to being half as informative.
Sadly, the Rocky Mountain News will be far from the last one to go.
And newpapers have proof readers.
We don’t have any newspapers delivered, as the paper recycling load was just too much to deal with, from a daily. And they wouldn’t settle for just delivering a Sunday edition. But we still do get three small town papers tossed on out lawn, every Thursday, without asking. And we’re one of the few on our block that retrieves before the sun sets. While most living around us are resigned to leaving the unwanted papers rot in the streets, for days, in their blue plastic condom wrappers. On very windy days, they’re just being blown everywhere. The deliveries sometimes happen after dusk. So who knows when to look for them. 97% of the paper is simply local adverts, since they’re “free”. But mostly they are a form of pollution, with a little bit of news value.
Let’s face it folks, in a few years (if not already) most people will get their news from the AP and Reuters. And that sucks.
I don’t believe that these large newspapers’ problems were strictly a matter of a lower subscription rate. I believe all these papers being swallowed up by some conglomerates, looking to squeeze all the profit out of them that they could, also had something to do with their demise. And they are hardly as objective as they once were, when the top eexcutives apply their political standards as to what gets reported on, and what does not. We saw this recently with the incidence of the “Anti-Obama” monkey cartoon in the NY Post. How many newspapers does Murdock own? And how far is he willing to drive them into the ground, to satisfy his political agendas? Readers get fed up with their major papers becoming the soap box rag of a few multi-millionaires. And instead look to the internet, and even this blog, as a more objective source of news. And you certainly don’t have to pick this blog up from a rain soaked front lawn, to read it.
Let’s face it. Newspapers were a good idea, only when they were more independent of corporate influences, smaller and more tied to their communities, and when there just wasn’t any other way to read news. Tv and the internet have both been replacing newspapers, as far more convenient, efficient, and less polluting or wasteful. But the conglomerates that snapped up these papers, haven’t been keeping up with progress. Or they would have found a way to go from a paper press, to a profitable web based model. They’re like the Music industry, that can’t wrap its head around selling music without it being on physical discs, under their old scheme of control.
Good point.
Why is the first sentence repeated 3 times in the first paragraph? Also, executives is misspelled.
I like getting the Sunday edition of the paper just for the coupons. The rest I throw away without reading.
I prefer to get my news from the TV or Internet.
Good riddance. The local papers only provide significance with respect to local news. Their state, national and world news always lags behind TV and the web by a full day. Worthless! Now is their chance to latch onto book readers for at least a dim hope of remaining relevant. Maybe if they marketed a “free Kindle” with a discounted subscription package it would help them stay afloat (and cut their operating expenses) but that’s too radical for the stodgy newspaper mindset.
I like reading a hard copy when I’m sitting around the house. That said, most of the content can now be found on the internet for free. One of the papers that I read everyday has just announced that they’re going to charge for content. I’m not sure it will work because there are so many ‘free’ newspapers already out there and it’s kind of hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube. But here it is:
http://newsday.com/business/local/ny-webcabl2712498959feb26,0,154075.story
Cablevision is one of those companies that keep shooting themselves in the foot. They buy properties, and then those properties take a nose dive. (The Wiz, Voom, the Knicks) Too bad about Newsday.
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly… plus it’s unnecessary. – ed.]
The only thing the local newpaper is good for is lighting the woodstove.
A big reason I never buy a paper anymore is the ink all over my hands. If they could come up with ink that didn’t get all over the place. That might help.
I liked reading newspapers for many years. But as the internet grew and could provide more up to date information then newspapers could. I begain to see the demise. Even when they tried internet publishing they over charged in many cases and most internet user’s were not inclined to pay for what they could get for free. I am sorry for those losing their jobs over newspapers demise. But I agree that the saving of tree’s will be a benefit. We cannot forget other people supporting newspapers such as paper mills and ink providers who may also have to lose jobs.
We tried many times to pay our local paper to not deliver the newsprint but to provide quality on-line access to their print edition. This newspaper had no business model that would let them take our money and not deliver the paper to our home. The industry needs a shake-up that leads to common sense or needs to die.
Print Newspapers:
All of yesterdays news, day after tomorrow.
Newspapers are throw-backs to a slower and simpler time. But, things change, maybe not for the best, but they change.
I confess I haven’t picked up a real newspaper in several years. The last one, was mostly adverts.
Some of the larger newspapers seem to be moving to electronic media, and that may mot be a bad thing, we’ll get used to it.
Give me a hot-spot, a cup-of-coffee and a sunny morning and I’ll still be happy.
I would lament the loss of a possible check on the Gov’t but, the news media gave that up a century ago.
Leo had the solution, give every five year subscriber a Kindle, and there you have it. No more distribution or printing costs, no more bird cage liners. The SF Chronicle is next, I guess.
I will hate newspapers going away for one main reason, good writing. Most internet articles are really just a joke to look at most of the time. Sometimes it’s so bad I can’t even stomach to finish reading them. Tech sites are the worst for me as grammar and spelling errors are abundant. Then there’s the structure, content, how graphs are done and data are being represented, and so on and so on.
I have the last edition of the RMN here in my hands now. Sad…
As a paper I would primarily read it at night, mostly at dinner when I did not have to be social with the family mind you, sort of a recap of events and opinions I missed during the day even after my perusal of web sites during the day.
I purchased a mini laptop to see if I could achieve the same effect of the reading paper experience by perusing the online version. Not the same…
I want to be able to read news away from a computer screen! Maybe in ten years when a newspaper size Kindle type device comes out and it can be wifi-ed with news and read like a paper at the table will the experience return.
I surmise at some point in the future the economic model for true reporters pushing articles to a semi-paying public in conjunction with advertisers will be the model…but today when things are gotten for free on the web, we will see more and more of these closings.
To what media will the local advertisers go?
Why do we need newspapers and reporters when we have latenight TV monologues, blogs and DU?
RBG
It won’t be long now. The printed word will become more and more of a rarity. Watch out Winston Smith, the ministry of truth has just erased your records and you’re scheduled for termination.
I hope at least some libraries survive. Or the next time the sun has a fit we can kiss our ‘culture’ good-bye. Only the smallest fraction of our current technology can withstand EMP.
# 21 amodedoma said, “Or the next time the sun has a fit we can kiss our ‘culture’ good-bye. Only the smallest fraction of our current technology can withstand EMP.”
Naw, data on HDs would mostly survive.
So when will The New York Times fold? Are they going to keep getting money from Mexican billionaires to stay afloat? Won’t the Mexicans complain about how money is being drained from their economy and going North?
Other contributing factor in the demise of papers is that they are deep in debt. Back when it was fashionable, companies pull all of the cash out of a company and then saddle it with debt. There are no reserves because they always project increasing revenue to service the debt.
The problem with this is that it leave a paper no room to maneuver or innovate. They were bled dry by their owners and now they don’t have the strength to fight when they really need it.
Shortsighted ownership and a fundamental change in the way news is consumed leaves them dead.