Monday, November 17, 2008

What is the future for mid-Michigan post GM?


OK, that may be a little overly dramatic, but isn't that what is on the minds of everyone in our area?

I'm hopeful that the Flint Journal is working on a project that would really look in depth at what the bankruptcy, or God forbid, the complete collapse of General Motors would look like for our area.

About now, I'm sure the paper is missing the departure of its entire GM business team last year during the buyouts, but the reporters remaining behind are certainly capable of digging in to what the future for our area is with a crippled or missing corporate giant.

So far, nearly all the coverage of the Big Three bailout crisis has come from wire service sources, such as the Washington Post, NY Times, Associated Press and others. On Sunday, I just assumed there would be a big local story on the looming impact of such a major change.

I would be wrong.

A local Home Depot Sunday was nearly deserted. Dealerships, especially the large ones with huge overhead, must be scrambling to keep the lights on. Restaurants, stores, schools, local governments, service businesses like barber shops and nail salons, etc. have to be nervous waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If newspapers are to survive, and I'm eternally optimistic that there is a formula (online and dead tree) that will work, but not if top management misses the chance to jump on a huge story like this one with both feet.

For goodness sakes, we had daily front page local stories on an American Idol candidate with a past link to the city. Is the crisis facing one of the areas primary employer less important?

In my crude understanding of the new media, wouldn't it make sense to reach out online and look for sources who are watching and waiting on GM's future? Business owners, readers and everyone could provide some needed perspective to this story with the paper acting as both a conduit and a voice for them.

This could be a great test for an interactive media, where reporters and sources meet online and them produce breaking news and analytic content for both the online version and the one that is printed each day.

Isn't this a story made for such a combination of resources?

In my humble opinion, the way to save the "newspaper" business is to make it relevant again, to make it a must read again and once you do that, move the subscription base from the printed version to the online version.

Would people pay $1 a week for access to news they have to have online and can only get in one place? I would and I believe others would. Plus you might sign up folks from around the country who are interested in your area and are willing to pay a little to stay up to date.

Then when you have signed up 100,000 (or more) online readers, maybe, just maybe some local and national advertisers might find it worthwhile to spend some money online. I know it sounds simplistic, but what is needed now is ideas (other than slash and burn) on how to reach and attract readers, not how to shrink them to a manageable base.

That's my idea, what's yours?

4 comments:

nseibt said...

Good ideas... but the news has to better, more in-depth, more local, than anything else: CNN is free.

Anonymous said...

To the previous poster, CNN and other cable news channels are hardly "free." Advertisers support the content and salaries; and unless Comcast is offering a deal for which I didn't get the memo, viewers pay a monthly fee to a cable or satellite provider.

Even by the Journal's increasingly lukewarm standards, it's shocking that the editors don't seem to think that the collapse of the auto industry is worth covering aside from slapping some AP copy into the newshole. While GM doesn't employ nearly as many workers in the Flint area as it used to, Flint and GM's fortunes are still very much intertwined.

Anonymous said...

The answer to the question about why there are no local stories about the crisis in the auto industry and the proposed bailout of GM is simple: The Flint Journal doesn't have the "horses" to write such stories since the buyout of last winter/spring. The people who could report these stories are gone and there isn't enough of a staff left to do them

Jim. we all know breaking news coverage in the Journal is a shadow of its former self, despite the editor's reassuring comments that "readers won't notice a difference" after the vast majority of the senior reporters took buyouts. Remember that? Him telling his staff that "the cream of the reporting crop" remained after the old timers were gone? Man, based on those circulation numbers you have up, it sure looks like the readers did notice -- and they are voting with their quarters, by not purchasing/subscribing to the paper.

The truth is there's little if any institutional memory left at the Journal, beat reporting is gone and the people who are still there generally don't know who to call for information, comment or reaction. Now I'm hearing that even when reporters wants to look up a topic or previous stories in the paper's electronic library, that system isn't being maintained. Thus staffers trying to look things up and see what's been written before aren't getting what they're looking for. Pathetic.

It's not just localized auto industry news where the paper is failing, it's all kinds of local news. I cracked up to read on your blog that the editor says they're going to suddenly pay attention and cover courts and crime, which of course the paper did in days gone by. Gosh, Mr. Editor, what happened to your policy and practice of letting your right-hand man, the newsroom boss, decide what the news was? You mean he is no longer going to dictate to reporters what they're reporting and writing?

Since the buyouts of last winter, the practice at the Journal has been to let TV report the breaking news first and for the Journal to follow up days later, whenever they get around to it. I heard that a judge trying a major murder case in Flint recently warned jurors not to watch local TV news reports about the trial, but noted that he no longer sees Journal reporters in his court room, so effectively he didn't have to worry about them reading about the case in the paper. I can hardly imagine a comment more embarrassing for a daily newspaper.

But after looking at your latest postings I have to say that my thoughts and sympathies go out to all Boothies being cut in the latest "restructuring" and round of so-called "voluntary buyouts" (which are a joke compare to the package offered a year ago). Best of luck to all of you.


Thurlow on Furlough

Anonymous said...

Newspapers should have never let their content go online for free. Now it may be too late. The "cut your way to prosperity (or at least survival)" is not the way to go. But hey, I'm only a plebe.