The Detroit News, suburban newspapers to be sold?

This potential earthquake in Michigan old media just came in from my Crain's alerts.

"The Detroit News could soon go up for sale with the other newspapers owned by New York City hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC, according to an industry report published today by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.

Also on the auction block could be the Oakland Press in Pontiac, Macomb Daily in Mt. Clemens, The Daily Tribune in Royal Oak and The Morning Sun in Mt. Pleasant, along with more than 80 nondaily publications owned by Alden.


The sale is being reported by Neiman as fallout from the to-be-announced scrapping of “Project Thunderdome” as part of a wider $100 million cost-cutting initiative by Alden-owned Digital First Media, which operates The News and other newspapers in Michigan and elsewhere."

Link to Crain's article, unfortunately behind pay wall for now but are usually freed up in a few days.

Bad news for all.

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Project Thunderdome, launched in 2011 and run by a 50-person staff in New York, is described by Nieman as Digital First’s “centralized, digital-first, mobile-friendly, new-news-partner content creation” experiment. It provided prepackaged national news and data projects, akin to a wire service, to Digital First’s 75 daily newspapers, which then could localize them.

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Curiously ominous name, Thunderdome. I'd like to hear the back story on why that name was chosen. Maybe something to do with the post-apocalyptic nature of today's print journalism industry? :confused:

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Originally Posted by gnome

Bad news for all.

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Not necessarily. Much depends on the purchasers of the papers. I'm no fan of Digital First.

I heard the News is moving to Silao, Mexico ... ;)

I get the New York Times delivered because not only does it have better news, I've actually found that it has better coverage of Detroit than the Detroit dailies.

Article from the NYT two weeks ago:
DSO is poised to be America's most accessible Orchestra

Recent article from the Detroit dailies last week:
Woman Gives Up Facebook for Lent

I rest my case.

There are a couple really talented people over there but mostly its just shmaltzy crap. When you're paying idiotic people like Rochelle Riley, Mitch Albom, and then a bunch of generally untalented people like John Gallagher who are just going to rah-rah the city and the state all the time, you're not going to get quality journalism. Then you curtail delivery and raise the prices and expect WHAT?

I know print journalism is facing an extremely uphill battle but there is just no excuse for mediocrity. When I lived on the east coast I always enjoyed the Washington Post and the NYT because they are quality and inquisitive.

As much as I hate to see print journalism die, I won't cry when they put that puppy down.

I have copies of the Detroit Free Press from the day I was born. It's sad how much they've mailed it in since then.

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Originally Posted by poobert

I get the New York Times delivered because not only does it have better news, I've actually found that it has better coverage of Detroit than the Detroit dailies.

Article from the NYT two weeks ago:
DSO is poised to be America's most accessible Orchestra

Recent article from the Detroit dailies last week:
Woman Gives Up Facebook for Lent

I rest my case.

There are a couple really talented people over there but mostly its just shmaltzy crap. When you're paying idiotic people like Rochelle Riley, Mitch Albom, and then a bunch of generally untalented people like John Gallagher who are just going to rah-rah the city and the state all the time, you're not going to get quality journalism. Then you curtail delivery and raise the prices and expect WHAT?

I know print journalism is facing an extremely uphill battle but there is just no excuse for mediocrity. When I lived on the east coast I always enjoyed the Washington Post and the NYT because they are quality and inquisitive.

As much as I hate to see print journalism die, I won't cry when they put that puppy down.

I have copies of the Detroit Free Press from the day I was born. It's sad how much they've mailed it in since then.

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Back in the day, the Sunday papers used to be a visual feast. In the course of my adult life, I have subscribed to a variety of papers and all of them are now less than they were.

Detroit News
Baltimore News-American
Houston Chroinicle
Stars and Stripes-Europe Edition
Fayetteville Observer
Stars and Stripes-Pacific Edition
Baltimore Morning Sun
Richmond Times-Dispatch [[my all-time favorite)
Washington Post [[best comics of all)
Daily Press [[Newport News)
Sun-Sentinel [[South Florida)

One recent event that shows just how bad the local papers are, at least as claimed local "journalism", is the GM ignition switch scandal, which should be huge news locally.

The NY Times, Financial Times, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek were all over the issue more than a month ago. There were in-depth series of articles over at NY Times explaining all facets of the issue. Locally both Freep and DetNews had obvious marching orders to omit any note of the scandal, given GM's power as advertiser and local heavyweight.

I saw no mention of the scandal in either paper until very recently, and then only in the context of "U.S. senators to harshly question female CEO" type stories. It was like the editors were first sending articles to GM HQ for review or something, like in some tinpot third world dictatorship.

I want a job at a newspaper. who's hiring?

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Originally Posted by Hypestyles

I want a job at a newspaper. who's hiring?

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Metro Times.

For all of us who were "paperboys" back in the 1960's......not surprised they are still in business. Matter of fact, even the yellow & red paper "news-stands" appear to be history.....

Attachment 23140

The Pictorial magazine was previously the Rotogravuere. My maternal grandfather sold advertising for the Rotogravuere.

I bought a Freep one Monday morning last fall when I was heading out for breakfast by myself. The paper was about two pages of actual news, and about 2/3 sports, with the rest being fluff that didn't interest me at all. It was a total waste of money, one that I won't repeat anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

The Pictorial magazine was previously the Rotogravuere. My maternal grandfather sold advertising for the Rotogravuere.

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Curious - Do you know what year it changed from Rotogravuere to Pictorial, I can only remember The Pictorial & looked forward to reading it every Sunday!

Does this mean windbags like Nolan Finley will have to get a job in the real world where they can finally see that their commentary is complete and utter shit.

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Originally Posted by jt1

Does this mean windbags like Nolan Finley will have to get a job in the real world where they can finally see that their commentary is complete and utter shit.

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Why change......just tank another paper[[s)?

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Originally Posted by jt1

Does this mean windbags like Nolan Finley will have to get a job in the real world where they can finally see that their commentary is complete and utter shit.

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No... they'll move on to the Heritage Foundation. And the others will go over to OFA or something.

They'll never actually do anything but lecture on what everyone else is doing wrong.

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Originally Posted by Smirnoff

Curious - Do you know what year it changed from Rotogravuere to Pictorial, I can only remember The Pictorial & looked forward to reading it every Sunday!

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Sometime between 1939 and 1949. My grandmother always called it the Rotogravuere even after it quit being printed by that process.

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Originally Posted by Lowell

Also on the auction block could be the Oakland Press in Pontiac, Macomb Daily in Mt. Clemens, The Daily Tribune in Royal Oak and The Morning Sun in Mt. Pleasant, along with more than 80 nondaily publications owned by Alden.

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The Daily Tribune used to be a nice local daily until a few years ago. Now that they are owned by the same company as the Oakland Press, the local coverage has dropped and the local high school sports coverage is next to nothing now. And the kicker is that instead of six days a week, it's been cut back to three days a week plus Sunday [[with no reduction in price). If a change in ownership could restore some of its lost glory, I'd be all for it.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be sad one bit if the Oakland Press ceased to exist tomorrow. I refuse to read a paper that has grossly inaccurate information and has bullied a twitter poster over "stolen" final sports scores.

Friend of a friend just let go at the Detroit News after 17 years of employment. The JOA had some good points, but is going to unravel. One paper will probably go soon IMO.