From the advertiser’s point of view, the nation’s newspapers have become little more than a blue-bag delivery service, with a horoscope and enough local sports inside to get people to open the bag.

Inserts are one of the last sources of advertising to resist digitization. They are also the next to go.

To follow on my latest post about the dismal direction of the N&R, it bears saying -- again -- that these folks are dealing with real problems. Like, existential problems. The inclination to protect the insert revenue is understandable, but the new paywall strategy is a false move.

I don't claim to know the right way to save the local news-org business, but I'm pretty sure it involves a serious commitment to high-quality local reporting and digital delivery -- two things the Market St. managers and their absentee bosses abjure.  

But, yeah, this is horrifying: 

I disagree with Shirky on one key point. When he says, "The closing of a local newspaper matters more than the closing of a local shoe store for only one reason — newspapers employ journalists," he understates the value of a newsaper as town square and public advocate. Maybe that's what he means to say, and maybe he thinks journalists will fulfill those functions elsewhere, but if so, where?

As we used to say, read the whole thing. 

Comments

[hartzman]

Old folks reading the obits is what is keeping most local newspapers alive.

I took some polls at Shepard's Center, and that was the consensus for paying for the paper.

When the generation who doesn't know how to look up who died, dies, which is relatively happening now, the newspaper industry may very well go with them.

So why would Warren Buffet want to get into a dying business?

Control of current message seems to be the biggest answer, as what the tv news reports of any detail is usually a function of what the local paper of record recently published.

[Ed Cone]

From the link: "Newsroom humor long ago re-labelled the Obituary column ‘Subscriber Countdown.'"

Not sure I see it in quite so ominous terms as "control of message," but surely publishers have always enjoyed owning the soapbox.

In terms of the media foodchain, for more than a decade the path from paper to tv has started with news online.

[Fec]

With the execrable perpetuation of the Ukrainian false narrative on behalf of the neocons, the demise of the MSM cannot come soon enough for some of us.

[brian]

And let's anger non-subscribers by sending me an email blast advertising furs. That is some good target marketing.