Like a carburetor, is the daily newspaper now a dinosaur?

Boys, boys, boys.

 

That's right...size really doesn't matter.

 

I much prefer the dinosaur daily "paper" newspaper to any other read news media. I don't enjoy the activity of reading the news from a computer screen. I enjoy my lunch time and any given plan/prep period reading the Chicago Sun*Times. It is however, getting thinner both news-wise and page-wise lately. It will be a dark day in my opinion, if we lose the daily written newspaper.

 

My wife really enjoys the newspaper (The Oklahoman) and I get some enjoyment from it but in the last 2 years it has shrunk to 1/3rd of the size it used to be. It covers about 2/3rds of the state, is the largest paper in the state, and has had 3 new owners in recent years.

For a 7 day home delivery in 2015-2017 it was $260/yr, then 2018 went to $364/yr. We paid it but grumbled about it. Then last month we got a renewal for $468.00 discounted from $520.00. We told them to shove it. Gatehouse Media purchased the paper Oct 1, 2018 and subscribers have dropped a lot since then. Tactics like telling a group of 7,000 subscribers in one area that their delivery route was not profitable and they "had" to go digital only was a start. They also removed ALL coin operated newspaper distribution points . . . statewide. Even if you wanted to go purchase one issue, you can't. Anywhere. WTH!

It didn't help when in an attempt to save money, they closed the local print operation and contracted with their biggest competitor, Tulsa World, 2 hours up the turnpike to print the paper. Print quality went to pot, page print errors, bad color shifts, etc. plus many many delivery delays due to the 2 hour drive from Tulsa to OKC and all the other distribution points. Weather issues? Forget the paper that day. I get the 100% digital angle, but this is a terrible way to get there. PS, the 100% digital version is also $468.00. Yeah a new subscriber can get it cheap the first year and then it goes to $520.00 . . . . for digital only. Forget that crap.

 

We have some local free papers, advertising heavy, but a bit of news, and (importantly) a crossword and sudoku on the inside back page. One was taken over by new management recently, and became a sort-of hybrid: many of the stories were truncated, with a footnote, saying if you want to read the rest log into your (paywall protected) account at our online edition.

A really good (bad?) example: they used to have a recipe in each edition, but after the take over they showed just the title and a picture, with the note to go log in, and so on. That at least did not last long; I would think there was a protest from readers, the full recipes are back in print.

Another example, in National Geographic's latest edition, the cover picture is of a free-climb (El Capitan?). Anyway, the story is a short executive summary, with footnote to read the full story at www. and so on...

 

When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased its paper edition and went online-only, one of its main columnists pointed out that it wasn't loss of readership that killed the paper. While that loss was serious and painful, it was still survivable.

But loss of advertising revenue was much more severe, and fatal. Newspapers must compete for finite commercial advertising dollars, but hardcopy simply cannot provide the micro and even individual targeting of online media, nor provide any sort of individual feedback or tracking. The bulk of advertisers are demanding those interactive features.

And craigslist destroyed their classified ad business model. Cheaper / better / faster, unlike most engineering tradeoffs where we get to pick only two, craigslist does all three.

Only online 'newspapers' can adequately compete in this modern version advertising-funded arena.