Who among NewMexiKen’s readers subscribes (or otherwise gets) the daily local newspaper? Why? Why not?
Some background:
James Surowiecki sums up the sad state of the newspaper industry in this week’s New Yorker.
Felix Salmon responds to one part of Surowiecki’s report.
In a comment, Becci suggests The Old Media by Susan Estrich.
The science reporter for The Albuquerque Journal, John Fleck, has been blogging some of late on this topic. Elephant Diaries: The Economics of Local News and The Elephant in the Room are particularly useful.
[This post restructured and updated from original versions.]
I work at a daily newspaper. And I subscribe. Without newspapers who will do the real reporting? I don’t know of very many bloggers who will actually do the work that is required of a reporter. There was a really good editorial written by syndicated columnist Susan Estrich.
The Old Media
Times are hard but we are still hanging in there. We may be one of the few newspapers close to making our budget this year.
Thanks for initiating a dialogue Becci.
No one — certainly not I — would discount the value of newspapers to the nation or the community.
The question is how to keep them alive and well and in what form(s).
I can’t imagine not subscribing to a daily newspaper from my home city.
I can’t read blogs while I’m having my morning break or eating lunch in the lunch tent where I work.
I do the Jumble and at least one (usually two) crosswords daily. I read the comics religiously. I appreciate having a wide variety of news stories, sports, business and features in one location. I like the travel section and even Homes with occasional do-it-yourself articles. Having all that in one place is what is great about newspapers.
I do look at ESPN and SI online but I really don’t like their websites. They are clumsy and slow loading and are more opinion than reporting. Using CNN or The New York Times online is not convenient for me.
The local paper is the best source of local news. And for me the electronic monitor will never be a real substitute for the printed word.
And as Becci said above bloggers don’t do the work of reporters. Bloggers link and comment.
I for one hope that newspapers can adapt to the changing times somehow and continue to print news delivered to my doorstep on a daily basis.
I still subscribe to the daily. Not only for the comics as SnoLepard mentioned, although I’m not going to try to tell you I don’t read them because I most certainly do. However, I really appreciate the local and special interest stories. I am lost with out it. I’ll even read out of town local papers when I’m not at home.
I don’t subscribe to one of them 25 miles east because the political position of the Record nauseates me and subscribing would help feed these people. I read what they put online (which is the important stories) as well as the online version of another local paper in a 40 miles west.
I do subscribe to a more progressive paper 25 miles south, a weekly.
I consider them all “local” since there is no “local” where I live.
No, I don’t subscribe to the actual physical paper and haven’t for some time. I found that I would have them stacked up and stacked up unread and I felt guilty not spending the time with them. I get most of the news from the online version of newspapers.
I agree that bloggers don’t do the work of reporters. But I also think that many reports are heavily influenced by bloggers, and so newspapers rarely report “just the facts” anymore, they put their opinion out there, which is not what they are supposed to be about, I thought (other than op ed sections).
I will not subscribe to the San Francisco Chronicle (my nearest major paper), because it’s one of the worst examples of yellow journalism out there.
There was a time I subscribed to 4 newspapers at home and 1 (WSJ) at the office. That was before the internet. Now I review the articles of at least 5 papers daily but only on the internet. I do not subscribe to any.
Canceled the ABQ Journal two years ago after subscribing for some 30 years. I tried wholeheartedly to think of even one reason that I should continue paying for such a lame rag. We now get the Journal for free at work and maybe once a week I might pick it up to check sports scores. All it does is remind me why I don’t subscribe anymore. Their website is one of the worst in the country. It’s all a very bad joke on New Mexico.
It was sad to see the Tribune go down in flames but it was inevitable because afternoon newspapers are past their time. The Santa Fe New Mexican is actually a very good newspaper but I’ve noticed that they’ve recently cut some of their local coverage.
NY Times, WA Post and the LA Times all have great websites. Raw Story and Huffington Post seem to have a handle on the future.
We cut our newspaper subscription to weekends because we stopped reading the daily paper. We get up and check out the news on the web, and would find three or four days worth of newspapers on the front porch, unopened.
The Louisville Courier-Journal, once a great regional paper, is now by and large the same syndicated news you can read on the web, but two days behind.
The quarterly bill for the Seattle Times sits on my desk and, if not for my wife, I wouldn’t pay it. Reasons: they’re downsizing again (staff and content) and two endorsements in November were particularly irksome. Maybe we will switch to the PI.
Used to subscribe to my local, the WSJ, and the CSMonitor. Used to devote whole weekends to catching up with the backlog.
Now I PAY to subscribe to CSMonitor and WSJ online, in my lame attempt to keep them running.
And I have been on the bounce so much for the last few years that “local” has been sort of meaningless, so I buy from newstands when I have time, also out of guilt and a desire to pay as much as possible when I do grab a local.
The East mountains had a couple of good papers, Phoenix not so much; although our local New Times stirs up mucho excrement from time to time, and the East Valley (Mesa, AZ) Tribune is an excellent paper and hosts the local election debates when they can get candidates to show up.
Soon as I am re-employed I’ll probably pick them back up – but have papers EVER been able to get by with such suddenly reduced ad revenue?
We subscribe to the SF New Mexican and the New York Times.
In a lot of cities, the local paper voices a political position that is dramatically out of touch with that of the area it serves. Most often center-right or far right in towns that are neutral or center-left. It is no surprise that they experience declining membership. To survive they should learn how to be nonpartisan, or should change to match.
My best example of that is Detroit, where there are two papers. One is far, far, far right, and the other is center-right, but extremely anti-union. The city of Detroit is far left, and the metro area is center-left, but extremely pro-union. A decade ago, the two papers collaborated to break the newsworkers union. Unsurprisingly, they have both lost enough circulation that they have stopped daily delivery, and they only run Thursday through Sunday. At least one of the two will be gone within a few years, and I fear it will be the more moderate one, because the other is propped up by the MI Republican party (i.e. Amway money).
All the newspapers I’ve ever subscribed to have been endangered species. They haven’t learned how to engage their customers; they do a poor job of reporting and of presenting what they have reported; they reprint too much from the wire services of dubious reliability, without appearing to have read or understood it; and they have too much hubris to even try to do good customer service.
For the last point, my example is the New York Times, which inexplicably won’t let us subscibe in longer than 1 month increments, or to have the bill automatically deducted from a credit card. We have to write a check every month. I predict our subscription will soon lapse.
Once upon a time, newspapers were a part of our daily ritual, and had an assumed place in our lives. They have squandered that place, and have been replaced by TV and the internet, so we would have to change our daily habits to include reading the paper. How they might get back to where they were I can’t imagine.
Yes. I read it every morning with my cereal. Gotta stay aware. Also can’t live without the gossip/TV listings page.
I really like to read papers, and I love the crosswords, but since I have spent so many years working in libraries, I don’t generally have to pay for them. Where I live now (not even really a town) there is a free area paper that shows up in my mailbox once a week. I look it over, but it’s only a few pages. There’s also an excellent monthly open-forum paper one town over that I used to write for, and I still read it, but I did recently allow my annual subscription to lapse. (It’s available around the area for free.) I also like to pick up the somewhat counter-culture Tucson Weekly, but it’s free, too. Of all the places I’ve lived (and there are a lot of them!), I think The Oregonian (Portland, OR) is the best paper.