Sunday, June 13, 2010

Going it alone for news: Not as easy as it seems

Reflections of a Newsosaur has some reflections on journalists trying to go it alone. You may have to scroll up from the comments to read the article. Couldn't get a direct link to the article.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant article. The comments were a blast to read, too. In particular those about the news being filler for the real value of a paper, its advertising. I laughed so hard at that I had tears. Today the only reason I buy the local newspaper, The Flint Journal, is on Sunday for the coupons. The only value that paper has today is the advertising. But it wasn't always that way. I used to not be able to go to bed at night if I hadn't read the paper. Today there are about 50 to 80,000 (on a Sunday) subscribers. Most of them are age 55 or older. There is no news in it, the value is only the coupons. So think about it, I spend a couple of bucks on a useless bunch of paper to find out where the good sales are and get back enough in coupons to pay for it. Sad. But it's the real world, it's the way things are now and it's never going back. There will still be journalists, but far, far fewer than there used to be. If you've got a keyboard you're a writer, but the journalists were another breed and some just can't believe they've been made obsolete.