Health of Oregonian in light of demise of the Seattle PI...

up7587 wrote:For me, the media has brought this problem on themselves. They gave up the role of an adversarial press. Originally, the press was up front; papers supported various political points of view openly and competed for their ideals. There were multiple papers per town. Now they portray themselves as unbiased reporters, when they are anything but. And most multi-paper towns have long since gone by the wayside. I have given up reading most of the O, resulting in much lower blood pressure.

I couldn't agree more!

-SciFi

Actually, I think that a lot of people share that sentiment SciFi and up7587. The unfortunate thing is that now there is the impression by readers that there are liberal newspapers or conservative newsapers and that alienates about half of the subscribers. I personally liked the Seattle PI because it was the more progressive newspaper in the Seattle area. On the flipside, my grandfather disliked The Oregonian because he thought it was too progressive and he cancelled his subscription. In my opinion, the problem is partly that there's no such thing as unbiased journalism, and you cannot alienate your buyers who grew up purchasing the paper product. I've always felt though that for many newspapers the editors and newspaper owners are often more conservative than the beat writers, but, that's not always the case. Many, many newspapers have gone defunct over the years though...long before this economy came along. As one of the Seattle PI writers commented, newspapers are by and large a very poorly managed industry: finding ways to alienate their readers and go defunct.

As much as I enjoyed the Seattle PI, I can't say I was never frustrated. I wrote many letters to the editor asking for better coverage of soccer...

Growing up (many years ago ) as a young sports fan, I always grabbed the morning paper to see what they said about "my" teams'. Eventually I noticed there were other articles to read as well.

Now, by the time a paper comes out, SportsCenter, espn.go.com, various blogs, fan forums and talk radio have all commented. The next day paper is too late and out of date. I imagine the number of 20-somethings subscribing to a paper is minimal.

up7587 wrote:Growing up (many years ago ) as a young sports fan, I always grabbed the morning paper to see what they said about "my" teams'. Eventually I noticed there were other articles to read as well.

Now, by the time a paper comes out, SportsCenter, espn.go.com, various blogs, fan forums and talk radio have all commented. The next day paper is too late and out of date. I imagine the number of 20-somethings subscribing to a paper is minimal.

The transition happened fast. It seems like yesterday that UP students were sitting on the sofa of the downstairs of the UP library poring over stats of the sports page. Who knows...maybe they still do. But, I think it's far more likely that students are going to ESPN.com or ESPN U in their dorm rooms, homes, or the computer lab.

athleticjames wrote:
The transition happened fast. It seems like yesterday that UP students were sitting on the sofa of the downstairs of the UP library poring over stats of the sports page. Who knows...maybe they still do. But, I think it's far more likely that students are going to ESPN.com or ESPN U in their dorm rooms, homes, or the computer lab.

Or of course on their phones... Haha when I tell people I didn't get a cell phone until my Jr. year of college they look at me and ask how I lived before that.

DaTruRochin wrote:

athleticjames wrote:
The transition happened fast. It seems like yesterday that UP students were sitting on the sofa of the downstairs of the UP library poring over stats of the sports page. Who knows...maybe they still do. But, I think it's far more likely that students are going to ESPN.com or ESPN U in their dorm rooms, homes, or the computer lab.

Or of course on their phones... Haha when I tell people I didn't get a cell phone until my Jr. year of college they look at me and ask how I lived before that.

Yeah, it's scary to think that people think of getting sports scores on their phones as a way of being up on current events.

Ah, memories. When I found out I could read the LA Times sports section in the basement I made a lot more visits to the library.

This journalist's reaction to the changes made me laugh hard today:

http://www.seattlepi.com/moore/404211_moore25ww.html

Hysterical and sad too...

I've read Moore a few times on-line. He's a pretty funny guy, especially when he's bashing UW.

up7587 wrote:I've read Moore a few times on-line. He's a pretty funny guy, especially when he's bashing UW.

Yep, he's a Coug through and through. Maybe that's why he describes himself as a "slacker" as a journalist...

I was just riding my bike and saw no lack of paper racks with current papers in them. Online news, while expedient and faster can never top the visceral feel and quality and content of a hard print newspaper. The pictures are better the stories are copywrighted so you don't find nearly the amount of typos and text errors you find on the web versions. Think for a moment of the smell of a freshly minted paper. It is only surpassed by the strong ammonia smell of a mimeograph machine.

You guys might be too young to remember the mimeograph. It produced pages with blue text. Usually something your teacher copied or wrote for distribution. But I digress, newspapers have many uses once they are read and the highlight section is clipped for your scrapbook. They are good for soaking up spills, wrapping your fragile dishes when you move. Lighting the barbecue in one of those charcoal chimneys that don't require fluid.

I have also been told that the pages are sterile coming off the press so they could work as an emergency bandage. Although its a hassle to recycle them. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. As previously stated, the competitive papers did themselves in by offering all the content online for free. Question is do they really offer all of the content? One might take a day to compare.

Newspapers make revenue off of subscribers and paid advertisement. The cost of the ad is directly proportionate to the readership. Meaning an ad in the New York Times probably cost more than an ad in the local throw away paper here called the Acorn. So if you support print news, subscribe and take out ads. If you support print news and do neither, then you really aren't in support are you. I mean this in the nicest way folks. Just give it a thought.

I propose that we all support our local print newspapers and glean the out of town stuff for free off the net. Newspapers have a place in our society and our history and I would hate to see them go the way of the dodo. I had a hard drive go bad with no back up and lost many links to articles about my daughter that I should have printed out or backed up to disk. My bad.

How cool is it to find an old box packed with newspapers from the thirties or even the 70's. You get a little glimpse into the past that never makes it into any history book. We are in such a hurry to get the news out first the quality of the writing and reporting is suffering. I like hearing about things live and watching the Ytube link as much as anyone but I just don't see how it can totally replace the newspaper experience(/soapbox).

Not only that, a severe shortage of bird cage liners!!

My 80 year old aunt's father used to tell her: if you are ever homeless, newspaper makes great insulation. I'm personally all for supporting paper newspapers as long as people recycle. I'll never forget doing a fifth grade report on landfills and learning that one of the things that occupied the most space was newspaper waste. You can find ancient papers in a dump about the Kremlin; a landfill is literally a time capsule...

For me though, the most important thing is that there is freedom of speech and that journalists get to do their jobs as watchdogs. God help us when people stop reading forms of media and get all of their news only from people who agree with them on the far right or far left. For me personally, I tend to use a print newspaper, an online newspaper, NPR, MSNBC, the National Catholic Reporter, The Economist, and other forms of media that I know I will probably disagree with...