Loss of tremendous talent at the Freep Press

[internet_pseudopod]

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.

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.

[Hermod]

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.

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.

[Wesley Mouch]

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....

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.

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.

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.

[Hermod]

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

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.

[internet_pseudopod]

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.

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.