Mar
9
Yes, they’re back, but unlike some TV commercials, I can’t promise regularity.
- Eight barriers to local paid content. Steve Yelvington pretty well nails the barriers newspapers are going to have to overcome if they hope for subscriber revenue (or even single use money) from readers. No. 6 particularly resonates.
- Professors could rescue newspapers. According to this piece in the CSM, professors could help fill some of the space in newspapers by writing for free. Interesting idea. It would at least free some of the interesting research that’s trapped in unreadable-to-anyone-but-the-experts academic papers and, perhaps, make academics relevant again.
- The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America. Time magazine has a list with some obvious candidates and some that some commentators have said are puzzling. It would be interesting if Time were to do the same kind of list for big-name magazines.
- Lauren Rich Fine: Cutting Headcount Is Only Part Of The Solution For Newspapers. This may seem obvious, but the obvious sometimes needs to be stated. Very much related: Vin Crosbie’s Terminate the Zombies Managing American Newspaper Companies, in which he argues that the struggling newspaper chains need to shed themselves of the CEOs that have led them into the abyss.
- Twitter To Start Serving Local News To Users? Another intriguing idea: geographically-based aggregation of tweets to serve. It’s an idea that’s only hinted at and comes with lots of questions.
- Want to save your local paper? Read this first. An instructive tale from Alan Mutter about the current struggles of Berkley’s Daily Planet.
