Re: ‘Compact’ Free Press might just shrink out of existence

LoRayne Apo-Joynt — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:40:00 -0000

Thanks for your comment You're right about the revenue, but there's a larger issue with newspapers' inability to migrate from brick-and-mortar operations because they lost sight of the relationship between advertising and eyeballs.

Even on the internet, if a site cannot produce enough readers, an advertiser will not buy space. Sites like Craigslist and Monster only make it easier to target key demographics -- cable TV can to do the same.

If a newspaper has nothing worth reading, whether it's investigative reporting or want ads, it can't sell ads; this won't change as they migrate to an internet-only delivery system.

As for the perceived opinion on janitors: I came away with a very different impression than you did. Management for many corporations when severely cutting costs will reduce anything they term "non-core functions" -- which means any services that do not directly create salable content will be cut. That means coffee service is long gone, housekeeping is long gone, yard work cut back to the point just before local code enforcement will complain, and staff might be lucky not to have to bring in their own tissue and toilet paper.

Been there, done that, would have been grateful to see a janitor instead of having to mop the john floor on my breaks. And yes, I brought my own mop.

Re: ‘Compact’ Free Press might just shrink out of existence

helzapoppn — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:18:49 -0000

Desperate Times, etc. You seem to be laboring under the assumption that a newspaper's primary revenue stream is subscription sales, and that its sole purpose is to provide jobs for reporters and union members.

How else to explain such a long article without one mention of advertising? More than anything else, the decline in ad sales is what's killing the newspaper -- not just the Freep -- as a printed product.

Your take is that ad revenue follows quality. On the contrary, ad revenue follows the larger economy and technological trends. The ecnomy is down and an ever-shrinking percentage of the population is ignoring printed newspapers altogether (regardless of quality)...for Web-based news like that offered by Michigan Messenger.

Not to mention how online services like craigslist have all but killed classifieds (once the industry's hidden cash cow), or how online job sites like Monster have reduced the Help Wanted section to second-banana status for job seekers looking for anything beyond entry-level or "unskilled" work.

Every source of profit has taken the hit, and nothing has replaced them. Resulting in draconian cutbacks as the very business model for delivering news changes...forever.

Honestly, where did you think your pay was coming from those 23 years you labored for the "venerable" Free Press, anyway?

(P.S. You also seem to have an extraordinarily low opinion of janitors and the work they do. You might want to check that attitude.)

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Re: ‘Compact’ Free Press might just shrink out of existence

Re: ‘Compact’ Free Press might just shrink out of existence