The sun is setting on the legacy newspaper business.
That’s pretty much the prevailing wisdom these days. Baby boomers still like to read the newspapers they grew up with — if those papers still exist — but younger folks are getting a lot of their news on social media sites.
Not that the younger crowd doesn’t like to read lengthy articles, too. But I suspect they are gravitating to those articles on smaller, hipper alt media publications put together by people who are more in touch with their generations.
After all, the baby boomer generation has a lot to be held accountable for, and they really aren’t doing much to address those issues (i.e. climate change). Some newspapers are still in climate change denial, while others give it scant coverage. Lip service, essentially.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I might design a new metropolitan daily. There’s the obvious, of course: no brick and mortar offices, and it would be digital only. That eliminates a lot of legacy overhead right off the bat.
I have other ideas as well. But I’m keeping them to myself for now — in case I decide to go that route.
But I would like to hear from my readers here, even if most of you are baby boomers. Think young: you’re 25, hip, very connected to social media. You want to be informed. What do you want in your digital newspaper? And how much of it do you want?
You be the publisher . . .
— Jillian
The Boomers aren’t always wrong and the Millennials aren’t always right.
The problem with hip alt-media sites is that they are prone to becoming echo chambers. Most of reality isn’t “hip.” It is confusing, messy, and has no easy answers. Success today is measured by how comfortable you make your audience.
Here’s something you might find very interesting: “Truth decay.”
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html
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Something else. I don’t know if you’ve read this, but…
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3952786365
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Problem is that digital ad rates aren’t enough to support the very high cost of factual reporting for a metropolitan area. It was so a decade ago and still is, as far as I can tell.
Witness the dreck served up by many of the digital publications we see. (“Tech Press”, I’m thinking of you!) One source stories. Hell, NO source stories cribbed from Twitter. Clickbait with 21-item listicles. Arrrgh! And many of those sad publications serve a global market and still don’t do better
The New York Times and the Washington Post are doing well. But again – global market. Try that in Spokane.
A friend of mine DID start a newspaper a decade ago or so and is doing great. But it’s hardly a metro daily. It’s a controlled circulation monthly in one of the richest neighborhoods in America. It partially supports maybe a dozen journalists. It’s a friggin’ excellent little paper, so at least he’s proven that quality can succeed somewhere in today’s world.
On the other hand, fictitious stories are super cheap and easy to write. Even if ad revenues aren’t great, the profit margin on lies is nearly infinite.
-Carl
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