Last week, Sam Zell, CEO of Tribune, and COO Randy Michaels announced a set of deep cuts, saying that shrinking revenue left them no choice.
They said they would trim 500 pages of news each week from the company’s dozen papers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Their aim is a paper with pages – excluding classified advertising and special ad sections – split 50-50 between news content and ads.
Zell’s plan is an accelerated version of what many newspaper companies are already undertaking in the hope of staving off the kind of huge dislocation that occurred in other industries, like the steel business in the 1980s or the domestic automobile business today. In those cases, the pressure came from legacy costs, labor and foreign competition. In the newspaper business, which struggles with those costs as well, the biggest threat is the migration of advertisers and readers to the Internet.
I think Zell is condemning his empire to the same mediocrity and failure as GM. What do you think?
#39
Ah, the consummate troll. Retorting to one of your idiotic comments takes no time at all.
Somehow, you and bobbo have mistaken “newspapers are worthless” to mean “reading news is worthless.” Quite the contrary, I read online quite a bit. The difference is that I can do it far more productively than I can with a newspaper.
>>The difference is that I can do it far more
>>productively than I can with a newspaper.
Well, if you’re looking for the local girls’ softball team scores, I have no doubt that you’re correct.
Paging through a newspaper I very frequently come across news items that I would never have actively sought out using an online newspaper, and probably wouldn’t have even clicked on had I seen the link. It’s the difference between a Renaissance person and a technician. There’s something to be said for broadened horizons.
I concur that paper newspapers are going to have to change their business model. I don’t subscribe to the local paper, but I buy one most days. And I learn many things that I would never have known by clicking my way around the online version. I also read the online version of the WSJ, the NYT, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and a number of other publications. I don’t spend an hour going through them, like I might a paper paper, I just look for (what I consider to be) the highlights.
In any case, the basic premise of your argument, that it’s somehow “quicker” to read an online paper than it is to read a paper paper, is just silly. I would argue just the opposite; I can scan an entire article in a paper paper in a few seconds to see if I”m interested. Online, I’ve got to click from page to page, put up with time-wasting videos, etc. If you’re not interested in the advertising supplement of the paper paper, just take it out and throw it away.
Last time I checked – about a year ago – both the Trib and LAT had good crosswords and decent comic sections. That’s enough for me, the one or two day s a week I buy a newspaper.
I get my news online and via radio, terrestrial and satellite. Oh, and sometimes MSNBC, although I don’t really consider Olberman to be “news.” Entertainment, yes; news, no.
#42
> Well, if you’re looking
> for the local girls’ softball
> team scores, I have no doubt
> that you’re correct.
Aahahahah….you cannot be serious. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of people whose daughter’s are not on the local softball team do not care enough about the scores to want a paper.
> Paging through a newspaper I very frequently come
> across news items that I would never have
> actively sought out using an online newspaper
I find the opposite to be true. Many times while surfing the net or news sites I find other articles and information that I would have never encountered in a paper newspaper. RSS alone makes it far easier to get to interesting information that generally won’t exist in a single paper edition. I think the web is far more amenable to chance stories of interest than newspapers. Indeed, you should broaden your horizons.
RE: Speed of reading
Again, I disagree. A very long article will require jumping through numerous pages and sometimes a few sections in a paper newspaper. Online, I can peruse through the article much quicker in that I can jump to pages (as well go page by page).
The internet has definitely shaken up my old news habits. I wonder if others have experienced the same thing?
I find I just don’t have the inclination or time to patiently wait through video news stories. So, I don’t watch local news anymore as once was a life-long habit.
In fact, I prefer not to watch internet video news stories for the same reason, always choosing to go for the optional text version, which I can then scan in seconds, by-passing filler & commercials.
I still read the local paper for local news, but expect this will change to web news at some point too.
RBG
There are several trends merging here:
* The trend toward an ADD lifestyle
* The trend away from locally produced (anything,
from news to food to entertainment to any kind
of physical goods, etc., etc., etc.)
* The trend toward higher profits and executive
salaries
* The trend toward everything coming from NY/LA
and all profits going there
Like to add to the list?
#46 Uncle:
Eat Local is the latest trend
http://100milediet.org/why-eat-local/
This & other web content is locally produced and is a global trend.
RBG
ROSEBUD
Hello!!!