Die quietly
Just days after Joe Cannon, right, told his staff at the Deseret News that he is cutting 35 positions and heading in a "more Mormon" direction because the paper is in a financial skid, Advertising Age calls for a halt in depressing stories about the media end of times. What's really ending, says AA's Simon Dumenco, is the end of decades of easy profits for media.Dumenco writes:
We've been getting the news, in dribs and drabs, about the disintegration of traditional media models for how many years now?
The chorus of death rattles -- all that gruesome gurgling and gasping! -- is getting to me. So I propose a moratorium: Let's stop obsessing about the lost golden age of easy media profits and just get on with inventing the media future.
7 Comments:
What's with the Deseret News obsession, Glen? That's at least 4 or 5 mentions of the DNews in just the past 10 days or so. Don't you have anywhere else to get news from?
One of the prerequisites to working at the Tribune is you have to have a chip on your shoulder about something. But Warchol, justifiably worried about his own job at a similarly struggling newspaper, is trying to demonstrate to his bosses that he has multiple chips on his shoulder, hoping this will minimize his chances of being laid off.
I can hear the interviews now.
Trib exec: "Glen, I am afraid we're going to have to let you go."
Warchol: "I've have at least as many chips on my shoulder as Walsh does."
Exec: "Impossible. Walsh has a feminist chip that you don't have."
Warchol: "Yes, but as a former Deseret News "reporter", I have a chip that Walsh doesn't have."
Exec: "Good point. I'll fire Dan Harrie instead."
The younger reporters will be the first to go at the Tribune even though they are paid minimum wage.
The younger reporters haven't been around long enough to accumulate enough chips on their shoulders, reducing their effectiveness as Tribune "reporters".
Just as corporate ladder climbers try to polish up their resumes, Tribune reporters are adding to their chip-on-the-shoulder collection. Some of the chips up for grabs are
- BYU
- KSL-TV (Warchol already has the KSL radio chip)
- White people
- Military
Chips already taken and spoken for:
- Republican Party
- George W. Bush
- Dick Cheney
- Big Business
- Really Big Business
- Mining companies, especially big ones
- Big Oil
- Medium Oil
- Vouchers
- Conservatives
- Charter schools
- Greg Curtis
- Howard Stephenson
- Curt Bramble
- Anti-open border people
- LDS Church
- LDS Church members
- Utahns
- Eagle Forum
- Utah Taxpayers Association
- Sutherland Institute
- Lobbyists
- Deseret News
- Religion in general
- People who live in the suburbs and drive cars
- Large families
- Car drivers who pass by bicyclists on busy streets
- Owners of large homes (> 1,000 sq. ft.)
- People who don't xeriscape
- Walmart/big boxes
- Non-celebrators of diversity
- Tax cuts
- Privatization
- People who aren't bitter
Amen to the previous comments.
It seems everybody at the Tribune also has a chip. My favorite one though is the one that against the family with four kids and a minivan who don't xeriscape who live in a "McMansion" with nearly three thousand square feet. Trib writers are alsways complaining about this culture of success. Bottom line: They are still angry they were journalism majors and make only a third of what others make.
Maybe traditional media models are dying becuase people are tired of journalistic whining?
So if all of you are so anti-Trib and anti-Warchol, why are you spending any time reading and responding to his stuff? There must be some stories or columns in the Dnews that you can read that will make you feel all warm and comfy.
What we are experiencing here is a fundamental failure of the media industry to change with the times. There are so many different kinds of entertainment in the world these days, and all cost money. Newspapers printed on vast sheets of paper and delivered door to door are so ancient that it begs to wonder how they survived this long.
There are far too many ways to find the news we want without paying any more than we already do for Internet access. Why would anyone buy a newspaper.
I'm with Spence ... like a fish, if you're not moving forward in business, you're dying. The response in the newspaper industry has been to turn all their reporters into bloggers. But when nobody's reporting the news--it could be argued we've already reached this inevitability--there won't be any source material for the bloggers.
The newspapers have concluded that readers want short, snappy info-snacks. I couldn't disagree more. With the explosion of specialized online media and the online digitization (a word?) of government, the primary sources of information are available at the click of a button. Given that, I don't understand what public benefit is served by a keyboard monkey parsing the same info from a press release, slapping together two boilerplate quotes from both sides of the issue and memorializing the pablum in print for time and eternity.
What the print media can provide--which the blogosphere, TV and radio can not--are in-depth investigative and analytical pieces on local issues and controversies. Give readers a reason to spend some time with a story and they will pick up the paper. As it stands, I have no reason to get acquainted with my newspaper, when it reads like a copy-and-pasted police blotter/council agenda/PR vehicle.
The Trib and News increasingly suck anus, because they've responded to the New World Order in news media with everything they can think of--except for back to basics, bare bones journalism.
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