Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Dog Peed On The Floor
Because there’s no more newspaper. Where did it go? It has gone the way of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
Well, not yet, but close. As the Boston Globe struggles to survive while other newspapers around the country are failing, the under age 40 generation (I’m guessing) is saying, “so what”. It should be no surprise to anyone that is able to navigate the web, that the day of the printed newspaper is doomed. The City Of Boston, and the surrounding neighborhoods, where the Globe and its competitor, the Herald, are most popular, can no longer support two newspapers, let alone one; and the one that survives, will because it has adapted to social media quicker. Presently, both the Globe and Herald are available on-line, but one only needs to visit their web sites to see that one has adapted better than the other. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert, but it seems to me that the Herald’s site is easier to navigate, less confusing and easier to subscribe to via syndication feeds.
In the Wahey domain (no pun intended), further out into South Suburbia, the Patriot Ledger has a site as well as links to Wicked Local News, which is the on-line form of local newspapers such as the Weymouth News that are all owned by Gatehouse Media. The Wicked Local sites need work if they are to survive. All their news needs to be put on the sites, and it needs to be done so quicker.
Without getting too specific about the value of social media today, news outlets of any type will only survive when they understand how to keep pace with and accept as newsworthy, blogging, twittering, syndicating and text messaging to name a few. All you have to do is take the train into Boston to see that there are more people reading news off of their phones than printed paper. As former print news professionals become unemployed, hopefully they can be absorbed into the wave of social media sites available or start their own forms of web-casting as many have already done. Critics of social media say that it’s unprofessional, which is all the more reason for professional, industrial media people to accept it. They already have the contacts, resources and built in audience to make it worthwhile. News and opinion come quicker and for some, anonymity makes for more realistic, interesting commentary.
In other words, all you 50 something and above Waheys out there better get connected, and train the dog to pee outside.
POSTED BY STAN at May 7, 2009
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