Hmmm

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

"We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs," Lodovic said. "Why does every newspaper need copy editors? In this day and age, I think copy-editing can be done centrally for several newspapers.''

Click here.

tommangan · **Posted:** Sat Oct 20, 2007 8:59 am

Yes, I work for this man.

Of course if you load up your "copy editors" with so much work they never get any actual editing done and all you notice is the mistakes they don't fix, then, yeah, it probably does seem like copy editors are unnecessary.

Maybe there's no causal correlation in quality, but none of the "good" newspapers I know of have gutted their copy desks or moved them off site.

I fail to see how these people hope to improve their product while cutting quality control.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

I don't think they're interested in improving quality. It's all about money.

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Sat Oct 20, 2007 8:15 pm

Great idea! And then, when readers keep seeing communities, streets and public officials misidentified due to a central copy desk in Bangalore that doesn't know the correct names and doesn't give two shits about it, the disconnect will become complete and they'll turn away from your newspaper altogether!

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:20 pm

Let's look at a few other questionable bits in that yarn.
The owner of the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News wants 20 percent of sales to come from the Web in five years, up from 7 percent now, Singleton, chief executive officer of Denver-based MediaNews, told employees in a memo yesterday.
*Technology moves too quicky to set artificial targets.*

To achieve that, Media News will create Web sites separate from its 57 daily newspapers to attract younger readers, President Joseph Lodovic said yesterday in an interview.
*Yup all those cashed-up kids on the minimum wage or struggling with tuition feees are just the gold mine worthy of investing time in niche sites.*

``We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs,'' Lodovic said. `
`* But look what follows: : MediaNews, which also publishes as many as 35 non-daily newspapers, had net income of $35.6 million in the year ended June 30, up from $1.1 million a year earlier

The company also predicts advertising gains from a deal with Yahoo! Inc.

*Let's sleep with the enemy*

The print side is struggling right now. Some of that is cyclical and some of that is not, but in the next five years we don't see print growing.

*Time to hire some one who can map out how it could grow. Stop whingeing, start managing.*

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:44 am

That's what passes for conventional wisdom in newspaper boardrooms nowadays, all right.

My company's fairly conservative, and they recently "partnered" with Legacy.com for obits (To add insult to charging for all but the most basic obits, now only paid ones go up online) and Monster.com for classifieds (daring readers to find the six local jobs on the hard-to-use and saturated-with-crap national job board).

We had a group of high-school journalism students in for our editors' meeting one day. None showed any interest or could think of anything to say when asked what they thought about that day's teen section. After the meeting, the editor of the section (who makes management pay to compile stuff for two sections a week) piped up that some of them had pictures in the man-in-the-street random question section and suddenly they swarmed around the page and started asking where they could get copies.

We're shelling out a good amount of money to piss off readers and cutting back on enough newsroom and office people to make sure they don't get decent news or customer service. I can't even imagine what kind of business mind thinks this is a good approach.

{Edited, not very successfully, for coherence and spelling.]

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

Heartodixie wrote:

I really don't get how any business-minded person could think the future of newspapers depends on less reporting and less editing.

Heartodixie wrote:

We had a group of high-school journalism students in for our editors' meeting one day. None showed any interest or could think of anything to say when asked what they thought about that day's teen section. After the meeting, the editor piped up that some of them had pictures in the main-in-the-street random question section and suddenly they swarmed around the page and started asking where they could get copies.

Heart, I wonder whether you answered your own question. ... I mean that seriously. I don't see many people interested in news. I see smatterings here and there, and that's about it -- typically not enough to support a good paper in many cities.

I'm cynical and don't pretend otherwise. But who are the smart people who are supposed to support good papers? I don't think they're in front of the tube, like most of America. I look at many kids today -- not all, of course -- and I see people who can't be alone with their own thoughts. They're plugged into iPods, cell phones, video games, etc., for most of their waking minutes. We're programming a generation that can't be silent long enough to read a newspaper.

It's not like I'm bitter about it. To me, it's like watching the California fires burn -- terrible, but I can't do much about it. I observe, chagrined.

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:06 am

copynomad wrote:

Heartodixie wrote:

I really don't get how any business-minded person could think the future of newspapers depends on less reporting and less editing.

Heartodixie wrote:

We had a group of high-school journalism students in for our editors' meeting one day. None showed any interest or could think of anything to say when asked what they thought about that day's teen section. After the meeting, the editor piped up that some of them had pictures in the main-in-the-street random question section and suddenly they swarmed around the page and started asking where they could get copies.

Heart, I wonder whether you answered your own question. ... I mean that seriously. I don't see many people interested in news. I see smatterings here and there, and that's about it -- typically not enough to support a good paper in many cities.

I'm cynical and don't pretend otherwise. But who are the smart people who are supposed to support good papers? I don't think they're in front of the tube, like most of America. I look at many kids today -- not all, of course -- and I see people who can't be alone with their own thoughts. They're plugged into iPods, cell phones, video games, etc., for most of their waking minutes. We're programming a generation that can't be silent long enough to read a newspaper.

It's not like I'm bitter about it. To me, it's like watching the California fires burn -- terrible, but I can't do much about it. I observe, chagrined.

I guess that's part of the appeal of pandering to kids. Trying to get them engaged to preserve written communication.for future generations. That's a noble goal, but it won't be accomplished by targeting them with babyish features.

And putting papers in the schools with all the cutbacks going on doesn't help either. I can only imagine how many English and civics teachers play "spot the error" with our paper in class.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:21 am

Heartodixie wrote:

That's what passes for conventional wisdom in newspaper boardrooms nowadays, all right. .]

A more dynamic view is presented in this 5min43sec videofrom Britain's Daily Telegraph.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

Heart, I don't believe in pandering, either. Even if I were gonna be mercenary about it, I don't think it works. ... I don't see a solution. For most of the past 10 years, I've taught journalism workshops for high school and college kids; I've tutored a grade-schooler in reading; I've been around many college kids because I take grad classes for enjoyment. I look around and shake my head at the potential "readership" out there. Copy editing doesn't matter to most of these kids; they don't know grammar or spelling, and most seem to care little about news. That includes the journalism majors. Hell, many of the people in newsrooms don't seem to read papers. Stories come up in conversation and I see the blank looks on their faces. Sigh.

Connfused · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:25 am

paulwiggins wrote:

Let's look at a few other questionable bits in that yarn.
``We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs,'' Lodovic said. `
`* But look what follows: : MediaNews, which also publishes as many as 35 non-daily newspapers, had net income of $35.6 million in the year ended June 30, up from $1.1 million a year earlier

The print side is struggling right now. Some of that is cyclical and some of that is not, but in the next five years we don't see print growing.

*Time to hire some one who can map out how it could grow. Stop whingeing, start managing.*

Meanwhile, rumors are flying hot and heavy that Singleton's looking to buy as many as eight newspapers in Connecticut alone, including the Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate and New Haven Register. He already owns papers in Bridgeport and Danbury, so he'd have a virtual monopoly in the state. Certainly doesn't sound like someone who's down on the newspaper business.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

There's still a lot of money to be made in newspapers right now. But Singleton has clearly shown he's not interested in producing quality newspapers. The news is just filler for ads in his papers. As tommangan has mentioned, San Jose has gone down to 15 copy editors. Fifteen copy editors for an entire metro paper, from what used to be 40, if I remember what Tom said correctly. And Singleton's looking to further reduce that, as mentioned at the top of the thread.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:06 am

copynomad wrote:

But who are the smart people who are supposed to support good papers? I don't think they're in front of the tube, like most of America.

They gave up on newspapers long ago because they were tired of having their intelligence insulted. Newspapers chased the lowest common denominator -- eliminating investigations and smart discourse -- and are ending up fighting for an audience that is borderline illiterate and can't rub two quarters together to afford a newspaper, let alone the Chevy featured in the ad on Page 6. Good biz model. This has been a slippery slope since I've been in the business.

copynomad wrote:

I look at many kids today -- not all, of course -- and I see people who can't be alone with their own thoughts. They're plugged into iPods, cell phones, video games, etc., for most of their waking minutes. We're programming a generation that can't be silent long enough to read a newspaper.

Again, we can't excuse newspapers from the list of culprits. (Not that you necessarily were.) The newspaper industry did this to itself.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

I think newspapers have made their own mess. But I also see many people who wouldn't know what to do with a good paper. There still are several of those. You can read most papers for free online nowadays. You talk to many people, they don't read anything.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

Along those lines, I just read this, linked off Poynter's Web site: Click here.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:46 pm

How many of those people don't read the news because they have been driven away over the years by a daily product that continues to put less and less news in the paper.

If I were 22, I wouldn't read a crappy daily paper, either.

larepublica · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:46 pm

My parents live in an area "served" by a Singleton paper. They prefer to get home delivery of the New York Times rather than waste money on his publication. When I was growing up (and the local paper had journalism-oriented ownership), they would never even consider buying an out-of-town paper, and I can't say we missed out on much.
The wider availability of quality papers (via Internet, satellite printing, etc...) has put locals in a tough spot: improve quality to meet the competition head on or just dumb down knowing that the classifieds, movie listings and high school sports scores will always attract enough eyes to keep enough advertisers interested. Clearly, in this bean counter-cum-Il Duce era it has been decided that the later is the way to go since it is still profitable even if readership is down.

onceahack · **Posted:** Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:03 pm

Quote:

â€œMuch of the news young people see is not presented in a way thatâ€™s relevant to them,â€ says Woodruff in a telephone interview. â€œItâ€™s presented in a way that makes sense to people who are older, who know what Medicaid Part B is, or who know what the Kyoto Accord is, or McCain-Feingold. Thereâ€™s a lot of jargon in the news, and thereâ€™s an adult framing of the news, if you will.â€

Yeah, when we were kids, we only needed to know terms like detente, SALT, desegregation, ICBM, MIRV, and apartheid to stay current. It was so much simpler then.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

jjmoney62 wrote:

If I were 22, I wouldn't read a crappy daily paper, either.

Most of them read little of substance, crappy or otherwise. Oh wait, they read Harry Potter books.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:24 am

I'd be happy if the younger reporters read their own stories in the newspaper. Then perhaps they would notice what the editors do and wouldn't make the same mistakes, over and over.

Wait. Older reporters don't read their own stories, either. Never mind.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:22 am

I, too, cringe at the demise of literacy sometimes and at the inevitability of the Idiocracy.

But for all the college students I see who may never grasp the difference between its and it's, there are a decent number who thirst for knowledge and just don't see the local newspaper as an option. (When I poll my students about their news sources, the one that usually wins a plurality is BBC online. Those are arguments to the claim that news (a) needs to be dumbed down and (b) needs to be local.)

Over the course of the past generation or two, we've let those young folks down. Both those of us who produce the news and their parents who are lazy about consuming it. When I was a kid, there was always a paper or two in the house for me to read. I picked up the habit by osmosis. I watched way too much TV, and I didn't read enough books, but I read the paper since before I was sent off to school.

copynomad · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:07 am **Posts:** 623

Like I said, newspapers made their own mess. But I don't think newspapers made so many people not read anything. I've worked with many high school and college students, including journalism majors, who read nothing of substance. Most of them cannot write an error-free sentence.

Reading and being aware of the world are personal choices. If your local paper sucks, read something else. That's easier than ever with the Internet and so much that's free. There's no excuse for people not reading and being so clueless.

My 20k-circulation hometown paper is better now than it ever was, and it still sucks. I went to some of the crappiest public schools in the country. There was no Internet, and there was one tiny bookstore that carried mostly religious books. My parents didn't read. I, and the people I grew up with, still managed to read, along with watching endless hours of TV.

Connfused · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:23 am

Connfused wrote:

Meanwhile, rumors are flying hot and heavy that Singleton's looking to buy as many as eight newspapers in Connecticut alone, including the Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate and New Haven Register. He already owns papers in Bridgeport and Danbury, so he'd have a virtual monopoly in the state. Certainly doesn't sound like someone who's down on the newspaper business.

No longer a rumor regarding Stamford and Greenwich. Hearst buys it, but MediaNews runs it.

tommangan · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:25 pm

If there's a possible upside, it's that the sale prices might've been cheap enough that wholesale slashing/burning won't be required.

Poor Dean, he coulda gotten the Bay Area papers for a song if he'd have waited a year.

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