Loss of tremendous talent at the Freep Press

The is lifted straight from Jack Lessenberry's column in last week's Metro Times. Ron Dzwonkowski's farewell column was in the weekend paper. I'm stunned at who else was shown the door. These were some great journalists and photographers. Pushing out the "expensive" help has happened at the suburban papers, too in recent years, the downriver News Herald coming immediately to mind. While the Freep and the News have been shadows of their former selves since the strike...this is just crazy.

More news of the dying Free Press: If you ever were silly enough to wonder whether the Gannett newspaper chain cares about journalism more than chasing down every last nickel, you got your answer this week. This week, it was learned that Gannett is completing the cheapening and trivializing of the paper by getting rid of a huge number of its remaining experienced staffers.

Among those going over the side: Ron Dzwonkowski, the former editorial page editor; Pulitzer Prize-winner David Ashenfelter; longtime Lansing correspondent Dawson Bell; and the familiar bylines Cecil Angel, Joe Swickard, Eric Sharp, medical writer Pat Anstett, photo director Craig Porter, veteran photographers Pat Beck and Susan Tusa, and a bunch more.

They committed the crime, in corporate eyes, of making decent salaries. The newspaper will probably hire a few much cheaper, small-market reporters in return. All this raises the question of whether there will be anything worthwhile reading in the Free Press.
The answer is yes, sort of. On the days Brian Dickerson or Stephen Henderson's columns appear, anyway. And then there's the Gannett weather map. You can also read Mitch Albom plugging his latest smarmy book or attempt to make money out of Ernie Harwell's corpse. Beyond that, there's the brilliant comic strip, Pearls Before Swine. And say ... did I mention the weather map?

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Originally Posted by Hardhat

The is lifted straight from Jack Lessenberry's column in last week's Metro Times. Ron Dzwonkowski's farewell column was in the weekend paper. I'm stunned at who else was shown the door. These were some great journalists and photographers. Pushing out the "expensive" help has happened at the suburban papers, too in recent years, the downriver News Herald coming immediately to mind. While the Freep and the News have been shadows of their former selves since the strike...this is just crazy.

More news of the dying Free Press: If you ever were silly enough to wonder whether the Gannett newspaper chain cares about journalism more than chasing down every last nickel, you got your answer this week. This week, it was learned that Gannett is completing the cheapening and trivializing of the paper by getting rid of a huge number of its remaining experienced staffers.

Among those going over the side: Ron Dzwonkowski, the former editorial page editor; Pulitzer Prize-winner David Ashenfelter; longtime Lansing correspondent Dawson Bell; and the familiar bylines Cecil Angel, Joe Swickard, Eric Sharp, medical writer Pat Anstett, photo director Craig Porter, veteran photographers Pat Beck and Susan Tusa, and a bunch more.

They committed the crime, in corporate eyes, of making decent salaries. The newspaper will probably hire a few much cheaper, small-market reporters in return. All this raises the question of whether there will be anything worthwhile reading in the Free Press.
The answer is yes, sort of. On the days Brian Dickerson or Stephen Henderson's columns appear, anyway. And then there's the Gannett weather map. You can also read Mitch Albom plugging his latest smarmy book or attempt to make money out of Ernie Harwell's corpse. Beyond that, there's the brilliant comic strip, Pearls Before Swine. And say ... did I mention the weather map?

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If they can't charge for their content, what would you like them to do? The money to pay the salaries has to come from somewhere. All the blame about the death of print journalism lies squarely with those who go to freep.com instead of paying for a subscription and to those who were incredibly short sited when they conditioned the marketplace to EXPECT the product to be free.

It is not unique to Detroit. There has been the same decline in other markets as well. It used to take a good half hour to read a morning paper and a couple of hours for the Sunday "visual feast". Now the papers have little content, fewer comics, less in the way of sports stats and few features.

The newspaper used to hit the porch with a satisfying "thump" and now there is little more than a wispy "splat".

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Originally Posted by bailey

If they can't charge for their content, what would you like them to do? The money to pay the salaries has to come from somewhere. All the blame about the death of print journalism lies squarely with those who go to freep.com instead of paying for a subscription and to those who were incredibly short sited when they conditioned the marketplace to EXPECT the product to be free.

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Newspapers kind of missed their boat. Instead of spending the time and money to develop something like the Amazon Kindle; Gannett was busy expanding the plant in Sterling Heights. In the early to mid 2000's the newspaper industry was presented with a choice and instead of embracing technology they doubled down on something that was clearly failing.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

It is not unique to Detroit. There has been the same decline in other markets as well. It used to take a good half hour to read a morning paper and a couple of hours for the Sunday "visual feast". Now the papers have little content, fewer comics, less in the way of sports stats and few features.

The newspaper used to hit the porch with a satisfying "thump" and now there is little more than a wispy "splat".

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Technically and poetically well put Hermod!

Yeah: Just because an entire industry faces a problem, we needn't mourn the loss of our own talent that we've grown fond of over the years. Since newspapers are dying all over the place, why shed any tears for the local correspondents we've come to know and love and respect? Since it's not unique to Detroit, everything's fine, right? Dry those eyes, sunshine.

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Originally Posted by internet_pseudopod

Newspapers kind of missed their boat. Instead of spending the time and money to develop something like the Amazon Kindle; Gannett was busy expanding the plant in Sterling Heights. In the early to mid 2000's the newspaper industry was presented with a choice and instead of embracing technology they doubled down on something that was clearly failing.

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A "kindle" newspaper is not the silver bullet. The key is getting enough income form advertising to pay the other costs. People don't turn away from newspapers because it is "old media". They turn away from newspapers if the content is not competitive.

The newspapers have gone to computerized typesetting [[much to the dismay of the printers union). Telling me that you can give me a newspaper on my Nook or I can read it on-line does nothing for me. I want my morning paper to read with breakfast.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

A "kindle" newspaper is not the silver bullet. The key is getting enough income form advertising to pay the other costs. People don't turn away from newspapers because it is "old media". They turn away from newspapers if the content is not competitive....

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Maybe not a silver bullet, but still might have been a good idea.

Papers missed the money boat that left for the internet. They were just about as bad as the recording industry.

They could have created interesting blogs years before anyone else [[for example). They had the talent. They had the content. They were asleep at the wheel.

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Yeah: Just because an entire industry faces a problem, we needn't mourn the loss of our own talent that we've grown fond of over the years. Since newspapers are dying all over the place, why shed any tears for the local correspondents we've come to know and love and respect? Since it's not unique to Detroit, everything's fine, right? Dry those eyes, sunshine.

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Good point. But it remains worthwhile to consider why the papers died. But you're right. It remains sad.

From here, its just a long ride to zero.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

A "kindle" newspaper is not the silver bullet. The key is getting enough income form advertising to pay the other costs. People don't turn away from newspapers because it is "old media". They turn away from newspapers if the content is not competitive.

The newspapers have gone to computerized typesetting [[much to the dismay of the printers union). Telling me that you can give me a newspaper on my Nook or I can read it on-line does nothing for me. I want my morning paper to read with breakfast.

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I think it is a combination of the two. Everyone consumes news but younger readers are often turned off by the format and older readers are turned off by the lack of content. I can't help but believe that if the newspapers had have created a pre-Kindle e-reader device they would have been able to distribute more of their own content as well as the content of others[[e.g. books, textbooks, magazines) with a minimal cost for the device for the consumer since it would be ad supported. Also, a newspaper supported device would reach market saturation almost instantaneously since these things would be given away at nearly no cost to the consumer in an already established market. The Kindle experience, despite it's incomplete and less than satisfactory nature would have been the thing that reduced costs, increased content and saved the newspaper industry.

Ditto about Albom. What an insufferable, self-aggrandizing little twit.

So we've got him and Rochelle Riley, with her non-sensical ramblings she mails in. I hope those two aren't making more than minimum wage.

I am also a die-hard print junkie. There just isn't any content anymore. This past Sunday's Detroit-less Free Press was particularly bad. I'm not even sure what the point is of the sections after D or so are. The business section could have been written in 1981 - you'd think the Detroit 3 were the only businesses in town. I distinctly remember one time the only article in the Nation and World section was about Michael Jackson. I could go on.

They really lost me when they switched to three day delivery. Yes, make the newspaper unavailable to those people who actually still want to read it. Just walk to the corner store at 7am on a Monday in January if you want the paper - only a dollar! I don't have a bird anymore so other than for cleaning the mirrors I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

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Originally Posted by poobert

They really lost me when they switched to three day delivery. Yes, make the newspaper unavailable to those people who actually still want to read it. Just walk to the corner store at 7am on a Monday in January if you want the paper - only a dollar! I don't have a bird anymore so other than for cleaning the mirrors I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

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When you go fishing in the summer, you can wrap your catch in the paper.

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Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Papers missed the money boat that left for the internet. They were just about as bad as the recording industry.

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As the dot-bomb bust a few year back showed us, a lot of that money didn't make it to the internet.

While there are some advertising dollars to be had on the internet, most active blogs and on line fora are self-supported or subscriber supported.

At the end of the day, timeliness is a big issue for me.

Other than bringing human interest stories to light, I don't think there's anything that the paper offers that I can't get quicker somewhere else. So at the end of the day, the "news" just isn't particularly "new" anymore.

The way it is supposed to work is that you can get the newsflashes and snippets from the boob tube or the radio and then get the in-depth reporting and analysis in your paper. Used to be you would get further depth of reporting from your weekly Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report, but they also are pretty weak gruel these days.

We always got seven days of the Detroit News delivered plus a weekly Time magazine in the mail for our reading and edification.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

The way it is supposed to work is that you can get the newsflashes and snippets from the boob tube or the radio and then get the in-depth reporting and analysis in your paper. Used to be you would get further depth of reporting from your weekly Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report, but they also are pretty weak gruel these days.

We always got seven days of the Detroit News delivered plus a weekly Time magazine in the mail for our reading and edification.

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Maybe supposed to. But ain't.

What's unfortunate is that the papers didn't even find a way to allow those who are willing to pay $5 or $10 a day for their precious paper to get it. They not only didn't get the internet, they killed the paper.

The past few Sunday papers have been really light on content. I used to spend at least an hour reading the Sunday edition, now I'm done in 20 minutes, including comics.

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Originally Posted by bailey

If they can't charge for their content, what would you like them to do? The money to pay the salaries has to come from somewhere. All the blame about the death of print journalism lies squarely with those who go to freep.com instead of paying for a subscription and to those who were incredibly short sited when they conditioned the marketplace to EXPECT the product to be free.

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The big newspaper chains have been systematically strangling their papers for at least twenty years now. The Internet compounded the problem, but their original mistake was believing they could sacrifice quality news coverage for the sake of short-term profits and higher share prices without most of their readers noticing. If they'd consistently offered a good product, they could have paywalled their websites from day one and most people would have paid. If they could credibly commit to offering a good product now, they could paywall now and most people would pay. Unfortunately, I think it might be too late for them at this point.

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Originally Posted by antongast

The big newspaper chains have been systematically strangling their papers for at least twenty years now. The Internet compounded the problem, but their original mistake was believing they could sacrifice quality news coverage for the sake of short-term profits and higher share prices without most of their readers noticing. If they'd consistently offered a good product, they could have paywalled their websites from day one and most people would have paid. If they could credibly commit to offering a good product now, they could paywall now and most people would pay. Unfortunately, I think it might be too late for them at this point.

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You've hit it on the head!

The papers became corporate entities, and the bean counters won over content. They did just what GM/Ford/Chrysler did in the 70s. They 'value engineered' the product -- and ended up destroying the industry.

The quality Japanese products were as innovative in their field as the internet was in newspapers.

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Originally Posted by milt721

The past few Sunday papers have been really light on content. I used to spend at least an hour reading the Sunday edition, now I'm done in 20 minutes, including comics.

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I'm still pissed that they dropped Garfield.

This is the result of buyouts. They got a year of salary and health insurance... So I agree it sucks but its more than some folks get. Beats getting layed off, your pension stolen and a sharp stick in the eye.

so is this why contemporary internships are typically unpaid?