It’s generally accepted that a public shift to online news formats is what’s driving the gradual extinction of the American newspaper, although there’s something to be said for newspapers being stupid, too.
Or maybe just small-brained, like the dinosaurs they’ve become.
Take the Gannett-owned Greenville (S.C.) News, for example, which devoted some of it diminishing ink Sunday ink to a story entitled “Sanford’s ‘soul mate’ comment made reconciliation chances harder, experts say.”
Really? You don’t say …
From the story, which quotes “expert” counselor Joy Bennett …
“Whether his public airing of ‘this other woman is my soul mate’ (was) helpful to the marriage, I sure doubt it,” Bennett says, referring to Gov. Mark Sanford’s now famous June press conference.
“It is very hurtful always to the spouse who has been betrayed to hear that there are a lot of feelings involved and to hear that publicly was, I’m sure, very hurtful.”
Wow. Because we never would have guessed that.
Incidentally, Sanford didn’t refer to Chapur as his “soul mate” at his bizarre press conference. That comment came nearly a week later in an even more bizarre AP interview, which means the News can’t even regurgitate somebody stating the obvious without dropping the ball.
No wonder these guys with their newsrooms full of reporters and editors are dropping subscribers like they’re hot.
Oh, and before they pull the whole “our audience is moving online” ruse, all four of South Carolina’s top mainstream media outlets saw their online readership plummet last month. The (Columbia, S.C.) State fell by 12.7%, with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal dropping by 13.9%, Charleston Post and Courier by 16.4% and the Greenville News by 20.9%.
By OhNoNotAgain December 14, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I think it’s obvious that Internet is causing a disruption for newspapers, but I also don’t think people are really shifting online to get their news. You’d need some horrific better data to prove THAT claim.
I think the dangerous thing is that people just don’t care about the news as much anymore.
I really like what you do, but it’s not going to be a substitute for what newspaper do if they suddenly went belly up and disappeared completely.
You generate one to two stories independently a day each week, is that fair to say?
Yet you have about five slots up top A DAY for stories. You have six slots with lead sections for the “after scroll” section lists.
That’s 11 a day. Five days a work week. 55 stories. You generate 10 stories that are actual news, completely independent.
What are the other 45 things?
You finding someone else’s story and either making fun of the people in it or sometimes the people who wrote it. Or its tits and asses and skanks portrayed for the lascivious among us.
Where are you going to get the other content without newspapers to provide you fodder for your decent wit?
There are other websites out there that give a bit. If The State were to pull out of Lexington County, but the Chronicle-Dispatch News went under, how would folks find out if a tax increase is under consideration or passed? That the school boards are considering redrawing attenance lines
By Mike December 14, 2009 at 5:33 pm
To use the overused expression (sorry), “they just don’t get it.”
Some of them actually believe the physical medium is the problem, which is, of course, partially true. If that were the sole issue, however, their own online traffic would be rising along with the “new media” sites/sources and the aggregator sites. This is not happening, as evidenced by the numbers above.
My own best guess is that as the new media grows into its own and internet access/technology continues to improve, the smaller dailies will either morph into VERY local exercises or disappear. The biggest may make it as regional servers, and to provide the dead tree versions for the remining old-schoolers.
As for me, I’m done with the State and their sister rag here in Myrtle, the Sun News. They suck equally, just in different ways. Like a lot of folks these days, I have tailored my access to news by developing my own set of sites. I thought I would miss the papers, but I don’t.
By Todd December 14, 2009 at 8:11 pm
The Greenville News has been must more honest about the corruption in the South Carolina Judicial Department (Supreme Court) than any other newspaper in South Carolina. Even with newbie John Kittredge trying to stop it. That dude at the Post and Courier (Beyer) is giving The Greenville News a run for their money, however.
By BIN News December 14, 2009 at 9:13 pm
And sic(k) willie’s online readership fell by 99 & 44/100ths percent. sic(k) willie is such a web wh@re. Posting cr@p that he won’t back up. Even street wh@res give correct change; if you demand it. So we’ve been told.
By GreenvilleGirl December 15, 2009 at 1:05 am
As a former subscriber for more than 20 years to The Greenville News and the now extinct Greenville Piedmont, perhaps I can offer a little insight:
Before The News sold itself to Satan, it enjoyed a plentiful subscription. The Greenville Piedmont was the afternoon paper, and gave us the events which had occurred since The News had gone to print at 3 or 4 a.m. The Piedmont also had all the gossip and scoop of what went on in the Greenville area from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. As a teenager, we liked reading it because we got a lot of information about our high schools. Plus we good find out whose car was stolen, and where it was founds. I think they called the crime section “CrimeTrackers”
There was no 5:00and 5:30 local news to reek of redundancy, as the 6:00 local news does, these days!
There was a 6:00 local and 6:30 national news program, and that was all, folks.
The Piedmont (afternoon paper) gave us good information – crime reports, police watch locations, local arrests, social events, local parties – what you would expect a large town or small city to make available to it’s readers.
Then. . . . . Big Bad Gannett came into our dear Palmetto State,raped and pillaged our morals, ethics, and our women. We didn’t ask for their left wing only opinions, and we sure as hell didn’t want them to brain wash our youth. The Piedmont was dissolved completely and went to the big newspaper heaven in the sky. The News was torn apart, rearranged and is not only a shell of what the original intent was when the Peace family owned it. We have had excellent journalists over the years, but most have jumped off the LEFT side of the Liberty Bridge into the ARMS of Gannett. I may have purchased ONE newspaper from Greenville in the last 5 years, whereas I used to purchase 12 papers per week. Gannett turned our sweet paper into nothing but a paper with b/w ads and no real writing, no guts or substance. The writers who held the paper together have either been run off or recruited by better rags.
Are the days of the newspaper gone? I don’t think so, not yet. However, The Greenville paper needs an enema of some sort to wake it up. It is SO stuffy & boring & liberal & leftist………and the majority of my city doesn’t feel this way!
By Liberty For Me December 15, 2009 at 5:32 am
I believe the physical medium of a newspaper is a plus.There is something about sitting down at breakfast and reading a paper.BUT..when the print is so out of touch or slanted,it slowly makes you less prone to pick one up..till one day when their customer base is so low they cant survive.Wake up NEWSPAPERS…Time to be the voices of liberty that brought you to fame.All that takes is reporting of the real important issues this country is facing.People will buy that…but not poltically correct bullshit.What good is it to have MSNBC in print.?..Yeh, sounds like a real money maker…dumb ass
By OhNoNotAgain December 15, 2009 at 9:42 am
I don’t live in a lala land where I think newspapers are fine. But I don’t think anybody has figured out the “real” problem.
My take is newspaper ought to report things that people don’t know about. Let their editorial page discuss what ought to be done about those things. But otherwise, fill me in on what I don’t know about government, public safety.
They do that, the medium of delivery won’t matter.
By WorkingTommyC December 15, 2009 at 10:13 am
Obviously, technology has shifted where the readers and the advertisers go.
Papers are caught in a downward spiral of lower ad revenue, fewer subscribers, fewer writers, less quality, even fewer subscribers, even lower ad revenue, and so on.
The way of the future will be internet/television/radio based news organizations and individual bloggers with very small, very localized newspapers for local politics, local sports, and community events.
Think of all the trees that will be saved! As a matter of fact, Der Staat and other such liberal rags should willingly sacrifice themselves in order to save the rain forests. They need to put THEIR livelihoods where THEIR politics are for a change.
By Just a good ole boy December 15, 2009 at 11:03 am
What I think many are missing is why did we have the paper delivered to us? I worked in newspaper circulation for 13 years, the majority of people who take the paper want it for the circulars and the coupons. Leave out the coupons and the average reader will blow up the phone for a week complaining they wasted their money. Don’t include a shopping circular and the readers want to tar and feather you for costing them extra money for a sale they may have missed. Leave out the local reporting for county council and the opinion section and its OK make sure it is in there next time. And never ever (I repeat) do not leave the comic section out of a Sunday paper,you is a sure sign of the end of world and kids to great grandparents will tell you exactly what they are thinking when you do that…