May 31, 2009

Four today

1. A little more from Dean Singleton about the MediaNews Group online strategy (Neiman Lab):
We will be moving away from giving away most of our content online. We will be redoing our online to appeal certainly to a younger audience than the print does, but we’ll have less and less newspaper-generated content and more and more information listings and user-generated content.
2. Huffington Post is ready to get down to business (fishbowlny):
Today, the online pub announced that its had added a CFO, Eric Ashman, formerly CFO at TheStreet.com. Additionally, HuffPo said ex-Elle associate publisher Samantha Fennell will be joining its sales team as executive director.
3. So what really went wrong with newspapers? (Non Sequitur)

4. The Apple netbook is coming... right? (Mediabistro)

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

You’re going to see less and less newsroom-generated copy online and more and more copy generated specifically for online. And we’re doing this company-wide. It’s not just Denver.

meaning LESS staff to generate??? more cuts coming???

LANG banger said...

I'll bet Dean is looking at the Seattle P-I model. When Seattle went online, the staff was cut from 166 to 20. Much of the coverage is now blogs, and newsmakers have been solicited to basically cover themselves.

Adios, journalism.

Anonymous said...

the beginning of the end. Get out while you can LANGers. "less newsroom-generated copy??? ......this is ludicrous. they tried it with the valleyhub and citizen journalism and it bombed.

Anonymous said...

of course more cuts are coming and some of their newspapers will be gone.

why in the hell would i want to go online at a very weak newspaper site when i have my choice of robust web sites that deliver faster and better content. it is updated more often, it is what they do for a living, and even in singleton had good intentions, which he doesn't, he can't compete in the online world.

the true test will be can they attract users and keep them. the answer is no to both.

there has got to be one individual left at medianews with a brain, right scarecrow?

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Anonymous said...

It's a shame that you can't delete Lean Dean instead of the posts. The guy is a joke and unfortunately for a lot of hard-working journalists, it's not funny.

Anonymous said...

As much as I enjoy reading a daily newspaper, I am afraid the end of a daily delivered product is at hand.

How can you cost justify the cost of delivering less and less penetration? The math doesn't work. Advertising will not make up for the expense of delivering a daily product for approx 25 cents a day or less.

As fewer and fewer people read the product, the delivery costs increase. I am tired of hearing that readership continues to increase because of the online product, that is pure BS. If they ever gave full disclosure, it would be easy to see. Let's see, over the past three years, circulation is down 30-40 percent in some major markets, but, readership has increased...don't think so.

If you believe fewer and fewer people will continue to get home delivery, advertising won't be coming back like it has in prior recessions due to technology etc, and that the online model for newspapers is not a cash cow, how in the hell can newspapers survive in their current state?

Now, add the Medianews brain trust and you have an even bigger set of issues.

I want to be wrong.

Anonymous said...

Why were comments deleted? I didn't see anything that bad?

Anonymous said...

So where is Dean's plan for people who want to read news generated by reporters, but don't want to go back to ink and paper?

Is his plan really to kill his news web sites in hopes he can force people back to a print product?

Good grief.

Anonymous said...

the beginning of THE END!!!! good night, gracie.

Anonymous said...

9:40, if that's the case then he's already talking out of both sides since he wants to severely cut down the print side. How much more he can from all AP papers is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

So what this guy is saying is that the web will be for pay yet it will be user generated? Shouldn't he be paying the users then?

Anonymous said...

Folks, there is nothing singleton can provide that anyone would pay for on any web site he owns. You can go hundreds of places for free. Why would you want a weak newspaper web site...for local news? Please, he has few reporters left to cover local news and frankly, no one needs to pay for it. His model doesn't fly and it will fail.

As a matter of fact, give me an idea that singletons company has come up with in the last couple of years that has made money.

If he is waiting for leadership from the NAA, he should find another line of work.

Anonymous said...

Gary, sort of disappointed that you deleted comments that weren't that bad.

I wrote two of them, and all they were were mentions of some smart people still working at the papers.

Anonymous said...

all langers are victims of bad decisions being made. does anyone know when he debt forebearance is over and he has to make that million dollar payment?

Anonymous said...

any payments old dean owes are not a problem. what do the bankers gain if he defaults? they have no place to go and no where to run. he has built his "empire" on debt and forgiveness for many years, the banks have no leverage over him.

Gary Scott said...

To 11:29: Maybe I'm being too cautious, but I've seen comments criticizing individuals in the lower ranks blow up into a back and forth of personal attacks. I'm trying to steer the comments section away from that.

Anonymous said...

"Can we all get along..."R.K.

Anonymous said...

We can get along, but can LANG put out a product that has more than just AP?