Death of Detroit newspapers

[cyclezealot]

An interesting piece by the Metro Times. A part time newspaper is no newspaper. Maybe the New York Times can start a Detroit edition.? Death of our newspapers was for sure as soon as Gannett's vampires came to town to feed on the carcass.
...

Last week the Detroit Media Partnership announced its latest "historic" and "exciting" transformation of The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. Basically, here it is: Want a daily home-delivered paper? Well, forget it. Instead, buy a computer with a really big monitor so you can read what we choose to give you, or go subscribe to the goddamn New York Times.

Gannett's thinly disguised monopoly will now consent to bring you the News and/or Free Press on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Fat papers, they hope; papers they want to see crammed with advertising inserts that will fall onto your shoes when you pick them up.

snip
However, if you look back on the various promises and predictions Gannett has made since it arrived to suck the lifeblood out of the Detroit News (See Bryan Gruley's excellent book Paper Losses) you can't be too very optimistic.

Newspapers nationwide are in crisis, thanks in large part to changing media tastes, but also to greed and mismanagement. But they are desperately needed; otherwise, Kwame Kilpatrick would still be mayor, Richard Nixon would have gone on abusing power, and citizens of 10,000 towns would not have a clue how their government works. We need to make sure newspapers continue to thrive, and that everyone has an opportunity to read them too.
http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=13555

[bif]

1. What's the point?

So I'm going to get in my car and go to the store for my paper 4 days a week? And I hate reading news on line. What a crappy move. Why not just raise the rates? They're still a bargain. Although, both papers have gone to shit in the last couple years.

[cyclezealot]

2. Would raising rates help..?..

The biggest problem is the likes of newspaper chains such as Gannett are sucking the life out of newspapers, because they can't render a 30% return on investment. More examples of corporate greed....Newspapers are not meant to compete with Chinese labor. They are meant to inform the public of our civic life. Newspapers are traditionally locally owned...Who expects Gannett to be a part of our civic life... Since they are really vampires... So, we have no newspapers. Expect our politicians to flourish , since there will be no oversight of their potential public corruption.

[sarcasmo]

3. My son delivers and says they are going to Thursday, Friday Sunday delivery.

He says it's the most profitable three days, I don't get it and think they are only shooting their selves in the foot.

[cyclezealot]

4. A part time newspaper

What good is that. So no important public business happens between Monday and Thursday.

[sarcasmo]

5. I don't think it will last long. I for one won't pay a price to access their online news.

[Lefty48197]

6. This is so sad.

I know that Journalism has been dying a slow death in this country for years, but to have local newspapers fold and possibly be replace by regional issues of a large newspaper reminds me of McNews. With no local journalists, there will be no oversight of greedy corporations or corrupt politicians. Both Detroit newspapers cut their own throats a few years back during the strike. They instantly lost about 25% of their readership and NEVER regained it. Apparently their non-union printers didn't save them enough money so they had to eliminate most of the print issues anyway.

[sarcasmo]

7. It starts in four weeks. My college aged son is having a hard time seeing his pay go from

500 a week down to 250. I keep reminding him that at least he still has pay.