Toni Morrison reading. For a lovely tribute to Michigan writer, Glendon Swarthout, who wrote a classic Christmas story check here.
This has been announced elsewhere but we got the email today.
"In early Spring, the Free Press will change from offering seven days' home delivery to offering three days - Thursday, Friday and Sunday. We now also offer a digital subscription on freep.com so you have the option of seeing the newspaper pages online exactly as they appear in print. And you will still be able to purchase the Free Press any day at stores, newsstands and newspapers racks - that won't change. We will maintain our strong news report, and we will redesign the newspaper to provide an easier-to-use format -- as well as retaining the exclusive reporting and depth that we're known for."
Just as I feel guilty for drifting away from US cars in the last five years, I feel guilty about discontinuing our subscription to the Freep a few months ago. They had discontinued providing their own reviews of books, movies, TV, almost everything. Many of their stories came from AP or other sources. I misunderstood the reason for this. I thought they were making a bad choice, not that they were making their only choice.
But this is what's become clear. If there was no local paper in Detroit, would the misdeeds, make that crimes, of Kwame Kilpatrick have been exposed? Who will serve as a watchdog over local and state politicians if there is no newspaper? Who will chastise sports teams for putting 0-14 teams on the field? Who will cover Detroit weather like it means something? Who will care about and cover the fate of this city if not the newspapers?What's the status of the newspaper in your town?
25 comments:
I will post a longer reply when I am not at work. Although they are losing circulation, all four of our quality national newspapers are in pretty good health (apart from The Independent). The FT is also doing well, but it's a bit specialised.
The local paper in my town is also going down like a dinosaur. The obvious problem is by the time you read the news on the front page you have already seen it on CNN, Fox, or the Internet... I do agree that local news is extremely important for checks and balances.
Looks to me, Patti, that they're not going away, they're just going on line. It'll save them money on printing and on delivery people. Putting it up online means a smaller staff, but I'm sure they'll still be keeping on eye on the shenanigans in Detroit.
My local hometown paper is still going, but I admit to only reading their online version. I couldn't justify the cost, and the online used to have breaking updates whenever something happened.
The biggest complaint I have with the online formats is the comments section where barely literate, barely rationale, and often-idiotic people post barely readable comments and bicker with each other.
I'm most disappointed that I'll lose my daily comics... that's my biggest reason for buying a subscription to the freep. I mean, I can get the news online. Guess now I have to.
Although I no longer subscribe to the paper version, the Houston Chronicle seems to be doing just fine. I read it online for free so...why subscribe? Isn't that the crux of why papers die anyway?
I wonder if anyone under 35 subscribes to a newspaper? We get the NYT everyday, but on a teacher's rate or we might not.
I'm online so much, I wouldn't want to read a newspaper that way.
I think the British system, with national papers and perhaps local inserts, might be the way to go. Every city would have a bureau to produce an insert a few times a week.
I'm under 35 and I get the Free Press every day. Have for the last 9 years. =P
But I'm also an odd one. My cell phone doesn't even take pictures or go on the internet...
Where can I get a cellphone like that? Push the wrong button and you're in Taiwan.
I no longer subscribe to my local paper, but not for reasons mentioned.
Being wheel chair bound, I'm not physically able to go get it and, living alone, several days sometimes go by before a friend or relative comes by and brings them inside. By then, the news is kind of stale.
They got me to start back up by guaranteeing they would put each paper inside my screen door for easy access. First two deliveries were in the yard as always, so I just canceled again and got a refund.
I do miss looking at that paper every morning while drinking hot coffee though.
I'm glad my small town newspaper is still thriving. I still get it even though I live far away. My brother is the editor.
Thank God for the Internet, Randy. It may be what spelled the end of newspapers but it does allow us to get around issues like this.
That's great, Charles. Maybe the smaller papers will do better than the ones that are part of a commglomerate.
The Rocky Mountain News is for sale.
I wonder if anyone is nervy enough to buy a newspaper now.
My local paper is still alive, but not thriving. As much as the competition from the immediacy of television or Internet, the south-bound economy, which has hurt advertising sales, has had a negative impact. I subscribe to my daily paper because although I disagree with much of its political slant, it provides a very necessary service which I appreciate and value. We have a local weekly paper that is free, but it accepts advertising from escort services, strip clubs, porn shops and the like. I wonder if our daily paper will finally cave in and accept that kind of advertising or if it will just go spiralling on down the drain.
Good for you for supporting it despite its problematic issues. I am going to resubscribe too.
"They had discontinued providing their own reviews of books, movies, TV, almost everything. Many of their stories came from AP or other sources."
Your paper apparently followed the same business model that mine did: Give readers less and less reason to buy the product, and hope that they'll buy the product.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
And yet, I will resubscribe in the hope...of something.
I was about to leave Peter's comment, but he beat me to it. I stopped getting the daily paper because there as less and less in it of interest to me. The cultural references became more exclusively relevant to people my daughter's age, and there was little to learn about what interested me. Most of my time spent reading the Washington Post online is in the reporters' chats, which often direct me to stories I want to follow, and where I can use the links to catch myself up.
The Post is light years beyond the Freep.
For the decade-plus I've been in its orbit, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER has been a paler shadow of such neighbors as the pompous NEW YORK TIMES and the too-gummint chummy (amd less ponderous but also less comprehensive than the NYT) WASHINGTON POST. My ex-housemate has been impressed by Murdoch's WALL STREET JOURNAL and its attempts to become a comprehensive competitor to the NYT (and a sub rate considerably less than the INQUIRER's). The magnates who own most of the larger dailies were making the same sort of greed-driven shortsighted decisions that have been slapping around the papers well before their classmates from Wharton and HBS began so blatantly gutting even the investment banks their daddies founded. Nothing new, alas...we also have a METRO, the free USA TODAY-style tabloid, the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, good if you like sports journalism and lots of ads (how it could lose money I dunno, unless they're giving the ad space away), the joke attempt at a paper the BULLETIN, and two widely-distributed weeklies with the brothel and prostitute ads and some more specialized papers (Duane S. used to edit the younger one). The INQUIRER and even the METRO have their own reviewers still, if much less space for reviews than they might have (and nothing as pleasant if slight as the WASH POST BOOK WORLD).
I suspect these will dribble along for a while, Philly being a big market when the burbs are included.
The INKY does have almost as many comics as the WASH POST, to its credit. But one can see the comics online, too, these days.
I fear that if I were a New Yorker, I'd be picking up NEWSDAY still, just to get a sane alternate voice that has the good sense to run funnies. Or overpaying for the POST, as I infrequently do here.
My local newspaper has vanished - this is a bad time for newspapers. In the UK regionals are down 18% and the nationals down 6%. I heard these figures on radio four.
I live in a midwestern Canadian city with two dailies, a broadsheet with a circulation of around 150,000 and tabloid with a circulation of about 30,000. The other day the tabloid announced a redesign of its website with the clear purpose of directing readers to it for fast-breaking local news. The paper's focus has always been on local news and sports (in full disclosure I freelanced a twice-weekly sports column for four years until 2001). Over the past six months or so, you have been able to pick up free copies of the paper every day at boxes in my upper-middle class neighbourhood except for those near bus stops and major shopping centres. So I have to question how much of the total circulation is free. Yesterday as part of a national staff cut by its parent organization, the local tabloid lost 12 employees including three news reporters. In this morning's paper, they reported that the broadhseet had told CBC the other day that 24 employees would be cut from its staff including several journalists. This paper, which is owned locally and not by a national chain, just signed a union agreement a few weeks ago after a walkout of several days. I predicted a staff cut and I was correct. The paper also publishes several regional weeklies that are delivered free to about 150,000 homes across the city and distributes a free entertainment weekly at boxes. My prediction is that the tabloid will soon stop home delivery, which I get, and may even convert to a daily giveaway with fewer pages and more boxes throughout the city. As for the broadsheet, which I also get through home delivery, its circulation will continue to drop, but IMO the owners have taken the right road in this city and not made all its print material available free on its website. Only subscribers can access the complete content. It also has added some financial pages from the National Post that no longer is distributed in this part of Canada.
Yes, I think a case can be made that free Internet access is a major reason for the decline. Perhaps our lives are all going to be lived online in the very near future--books newspapers, tv, movies, music. I wonder if our eyes, brains and fingers can take it.
Todd, are you the Todd Mason who used to work at the Inky? If so, Porus C., whose desk is separated from mine only by a printer, a fax machine, and a water dispener.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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