The editor of the Flint Journal has checked in with an evaluation of the first month of the "new" Flint Journal. (Maybe they will fix them by the time you read this, but what are those wierd symbols that frequently pop up in MLive copy? They have had that issue since the beginning, you would think they could have worked that annoying glitch out by now.)
It's long on feel good and short on numbers. If a reporter wrote this story the editor would have them go back and ask a few questions.
How many subscribers did you gain or lose in this change?
How's the advertising revenue holding up with the change?
How's that transition to online advertising working to keep the wolf away from the door?
What have the people who have called to cancel their subscriptions been saying?
Where are all those great online videos we used to hear about for Mlive?
That would be a good start to actually make this column informative. As the old editor used to end every column of his: Let me know what you think.
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9 comments:
That column was a joke. More local news than ever before? My butt. Does he really think people are so stupid they'll believe that? They can see for themselves it's an inferior product.
Like we've always said about Johnny Dangerous - if his lips are moving, he's lying. Absolutely no one who continues to read this rag of a paper believes him. Maybe Super-editor Heiner made Johnny do this. Expect a "letters to the editor" page to back up these false claims.
It's easy to snipe, but do yourself a favor: count up the number of stories being posted on mlive.com/flint each day ... you may find that the "more local news" claim is right. It is and has been updated frequently throughout the day since June 1. If you don't like the paper, fine. But there is still a lot of content going online.
Not one person has told me they like the new paper. Not one. Yet all we hear from the talking heads is how much people like it. What a crock of crap.
I'm not disputing that Anonymous 20:17. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I am posting links to some of those stories. It's a goshawful site to navigate, but because I like local news I do visit there a couple times a day. But here's the next question, how much money are they making from that venture as opposed to how much they make from the dead tree venture? So which one should they pour more money into?
I criticize the site for its unbelievable difficult navigation problems. Also the lack of communication between one paper and the other and the inability to link to stories from one site to the other makes it frustrating, but to be clear, I enjoy reading the local news stories online (whenever I'm able to find them).
I agree there are a lot of stories being posted online. But how many of them are two or three paragraphs because people are so overworked?
Those ugly symbols appear online because someone isn't publishing the stories correctly. It's a Mac thing. Perhaps the problem is because most of the online team was let go. (And wasn't that editor one of the ones leaving?)
The editor was supposed to leave, but he's staying on until his replacement is back from a leave.
Sounds to me as though the "fact checker" needs a fact checker. There was nothing "exclusive" about the live web chat following the GM bankruptcy filing, and the Journal linked to other newspapers' coverage. I guess that's "probing coverage," if you define "probing coverage" as probing other news sources.
As the great philosopher Judge Judy says, "Don't pee on my shoes and tell me it's raining."
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