On the future of smalltown newspapers, the news business and snailpapers
A guest blog post by Curtis Bloes on the future of the news business, small town newspapers and snailpapers: [Curtis Bloes in Sac City, Iowa dishes the dirt on snailpapers in his neck of the woods....]
[webposted in Danny Bloom's ''I SEE BY THE SNAILPAPERS'' blog on January 32, 2010.]
The small town local weekly newspaper. To most people, it's kind of a joke in the "It's so bad it's good" vein. They don't read it for insight into what actually happened in their town over the course of the last 7 days because that's not really what the weekly local newspaper does.
Don't get me wrong, those lonely editors sitting in their main street buildings that used to be drugstores back when people shopped in their home towns have the best of intentions. They, to the best of their journalistic abilities, print at least a single sentence about the major votes of the local council and publish pictures of the local kids dressed up like elves and reindeer.
The one page of sports featured in the small town weekly newspaper is usually pretty solid. The long standing relationship the paper has with the local school usually guarantees that all of the scores and stats that editor needs will be passed along a well greased communication line. Comments from the coaches who are so used to answering the handful of questions one can ask about any sporting event usually take a few seconds to scribble out answers to all of them for inclusion with the fax. Pop in a play by play of one girl's and one boy’s varsity event and presto! Sports page done.
The "news" section of a small town local weekly newspaper really isn't about much more then slightly expanded minutes of the local meetings, some sports stats and stories, and pictures of the kids and pictures of people with giant checks shaking hands. If you squished it all together and included press releases from the police about accidents and arrests of note, and of course obits,* it would take up about two pages or both sides of one page, however you choose to measure.
After that you have about 10 pages, that are mostly advertising of one sort or another. They have:
1. Actual advertising, (wanna make a million dollars stuffing envelopes, a job driving trucks, whiter teeth?)
2. A category of advertising I call "supporting the local paper" **
3. A category commonly referred to as "advertorial", (you know, those articles written by local people who think of their hobby or start-up as a benefit to the public, even though their motives are actually to make profit. They have gone past the "maybe we can get (local newspaper editor) to write a story about us, and have moved shamelessly on to the "we'll write it ourselves" phase.)
Typically you can find about two pages, with nothing but announcements like where the next church soup supper is going to be, or what clubs are selling which kinds of sandwiches or pies next week.
There is usually one page, with utter filler like local not very funny columnists and boilerplate stuff from the local state rep, and then one page of legal notices.
Voila! Four pieces of paper folded into 16 pages and delivered up with a bit of an apologetic grin.
Nobody really spends much time reading it. They have the best of intentions when they open it up, but usually they just scan the 5 paragraphs about the city council meeting and the 7 paragraphs about the school board meet. They glance at the 2 paragraphs about county supervisors meeting and then check to see if anyone actually wrote a letter to the editor this week. Lastly they read about their friends who have passed away. Getting through the actual news content of a small town newspaper is usually done between the counter where they ponied up the $0.75 and their car they drove to get to the store.
Don’t get me wrong. It's not like people really care about the lack of news in smalltown newspapers. They recognize that those pieces of paper are part of the world of yesterday and don't really expect too much from them. Laziness on the part of their local newspaper editors is part of the process and they have grown used to it. They are getting all of their actual local news the same way as they always have... from their neighbors... DAYS and DAYS before a single sentence appears in the paper... and in greater detail. Social networking seems to be supplanting and improving upon the face to face method of exchange, and it also throws into sharp relief just how unneeded the local paper really is.
All of the non-news things like where to buy a house, and when will the church soup supper be and where can I get a job have been replaced by the internet. The local weekly small town newspaper only has the value of their content left to them. Because they are unwilling to upset the local businessmen, who are also the local councilmen and planning and zoning members, and who are also the people in that category of advertising that is really just about supporting the paper, they will not actually print more than a slightly beefed up version of minutes of those meetings.
As much as I love the interface, I think small town newspapers are doomed to walk the same path as snail mail. Why pay to send a letter when you can send a message right now for free? Why pay to read about it 7 days later in the paper when you can hear what really happened from your neighbor right now for free?
Like the written letter, the newspaper has evolved. It is now the snailpaper.
*possibly the most important news feature for which people in small towns continue to buy papers
**These are advertising dollars spent on the paper by people with established businesses and no real competition. Either under pressure from the local chamber of commerce, or because they realize that without their advertising dollars, the paper would literally fold, they spend a couple hundred per week on advertising more as the cost of being good citizens than because they need to get the word out about their product.
Also in this category is the local school paper. This gives the local kids experience writing news, and the local paper a guaranteed full page of advertising.
LINKS:
http://thesacnews.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-sez-931-unique-computers-in-sac.html
TheSacNews.com
http://thesacnews.blogspot.com
[webposted in Danny Bloom's ''I SEE BY THE SNAILPAPERS'' blog on January 32, 2010.]
The small town local weekly newspaper. To most people, it's kind of a joke in the "It's so bad it's good" vein. They don't read it for insight into what actually happened in their town over the course of the last 7 days because that's not really what the weekly local newspaper does.
Don't get me wrong, those lonely editors sitting in their main street buildings that used to be drugstores back when people shopped in their home towns have the best of intentions. They, to the best of their journalistic abilities, print at least a single sentence about the major votes of the local council and publish pictures of the local kids dressed up like elves and reindeer.
The one page of sports featured in the small town weekly newspaper is usually pretty solid. The long standing relationship the paper has with the local school usually guarantees that all of the scores and stats that editor needs will be passed along a well greased communication line. Comments from the coaches who are so used to answering the handful of questions one can ask about any sporting event usually take a few seconds to scribble out answers to all of them for inclusion with the fax. Pop in a play by play of one girl's and one boy’s varsity event and presto! Sports page done.
The "news" section of a small town local weekly newspaper really isn't about much more then slightly expanded minutes of the local meetings, some sports stats and stories, and pictures of the kids and pictures of people with giant checks shaking hands. If you squished it all together and included press releases from the police about accidents and arrests of note, and of course obits,* it would take up about two pages or both sides of one page, however you choose to measure.
After that you have about 10 pages, that are mostly advertising of one sort or another. They have:
1. Actual advertising, (wanna make a million dollars stuffing envelopes, a job driving trucks, whiter teeth?)
2. A category of advertising I call "supporting the local paper" **
3. A category commonly referred to as "advertorial", (you know, those articles written by local people who think of their hobby or start-up as a benefit to the public, even though their motives are actually to make profit. They have gone past the "maybe we can get (local newspaper editor) to write a story about us, and have moved shamelessly on to the "we'll write it ourselves" phase.)
Typically you can find about two pages, with nothing but announcements like where the next church soup supper is going to be, or what clubs are selling which kinds of sandwiches or pies next week.
There is usually one page, with utter filler like local not very funny columnists and boilerplate stuff from the local state rep, and then one page of legal notices.
Voila! Four pieces of paper folded into 16 pages and delivered up with a bit of an apologetic grin.
Nobody really spends much time reading it. They have the best of intentions when they open it up, but usually they just scan the 5 paragraphs about the city council meeting and the 7 paragraphs about the school board meet. They glance at the 2 paragraphs about county supervisors meeting and then check to see if anyone actually wrote a letter to the editor this week. Lastly they read about their friends who have passed away. Getting through the actual news content of a small town newspaper is usually done between the counter where they ponied up the $0.75 and their car they drove to get to the store.
Don’t get me wrong. It's not like people really care about the lack of news in smalltown newspapers. They recognize that those pieces of paper are part of the world of yesterday and don't really expect too much from them. Laziness on the part of their local newspaper editors is part of the process and they have grown used to it. They are getting all of their actual local news the same way as they always have... from their neighbors... DAYS and DAYS before a single sentence appears in the paper... and in greater detail. Social networking seems to be supplanting and improving upon the face to face method of exchange, and it also throws into sharp relief just how unneeded the local paper really is.
All of the non-news things like where to buy a house, and when will the church soup supper be and where can I get a job have been replaced by the internet. The local weekly small town newspaper only has the value of their content left to them. Because they are unwilling to upset the local businessmen, who are also the local councilmen and planning and zoning members, and who are also the people in that category of advertising that is really just about supporting the paper, they will not actually print more than a slightly beefed up version of minutes of those meetings.
As much as I love the interface, I think small town newspapers are doomed to walk the same path as snail mail. Why pay to send a letter when you can send a message right now for free? Why pay to read about it 7 days later in the paper when you can hear what really happened from your neighbor right now for free?
Like the written letter, the newspaper has evolved. It is now the snailpaper.
*possibly the most important news feature for which people in small towns continue to buy papers
**These are advertising dollars spent on the paper by people with established businesses and no real competition. Either under pressure from the local chamber of commerce, or because they realize that without their advertising dollars, the paper would literally fold, they spend a couple hundred per week on advertising more as the cost of being good citizens than because they need to get the word out about their product.
Also in this category is the local school paper. This gives the local kids experience writing news, and the local paper a guaranteed full page of advertising.
LINKS:
http://thesacnews.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-sez-931-unique-computers-in-sac.html
TheSacNews.com
http://thesacnews.blogspot.com
posted by dan at 6:42 PM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ha you really haven't a clue do you. People pay for our paper and we don't give it away free online like many other larger publications do. We have subscribers from all over the country who do in fact renew their publication every 6 months. Why is that Mr. Know It All? We don't give our paper away online.
Thank you for your time. Have a pleasent day.
Kennedy
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