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With the recent furloughs and layoffs, newspaper advertising dropping an unprecedented 29% in the first quarter ($2.6 billion in lost revenue), an attempt to sell Daily Progress HQ, and a website redesign that the majority of you thought was “worse than before,” things aren’t looking good for Charlottesville’s only daily paper. But who are they looking good for?
Janis Jaquith, in an opinion piece published in the Hook, thinks its the local weeklies. She also names daily newspapers like the Daily Progress lumbering dinosaurs and cockroaches. BURN. Take this passage:
Unlike the lumbering Daily Progress– which is owned by somebody in a galaxy far, far away, and is now mostly a printer of those press releases and wire service reports, not to mention editorials that are devoid of any connection to the community– these newsweeklies are small and locally-owned, which allows them the flexibility to adapt to a changing landscape.
It’s all the same, right? Janis forgets that publishing a weekly paper that’s free is a whole lot easier than publishing a daily paper and making people pay for it. It’s easy to fill a paper with only local stuff when you fill 75% of it with ads and wait a week for local news to happen. The Daily Progress has a harder, more expensive job than the weeklies because the DP has already dug its own grave without realizing it. Getting out of AP-filled, daily publishing is basically impossible. Also, anyone ever look how much it costs to advertise in the DP? Holy Moly. How do you change a sinking ship?
We’re also obviously jealous that Janis has her eye on the “locally-owned independent newspapers– these shapers of local opinion, keepers of the flame of investigative journalism.“ She forgot things like cvillenews, COUGH COUGH cVillain, the Charlottesville twitter community, and the multitude of opinionated independent publishing sites (e.g. realcentralvirginia, velvut rut) which drive more opinion than any “newspaper” can or will.
I hate to tell this to the Daily Progress and the “independents,” but the truth is that PEOPLE shape the opinion and keep the check on investigative journalism. People comment on blogs, discuss things with their friends and they are the ones who ultimately shape opinion, which is, after all, all news is. The Daily Progress and newspapers are dying. Whether it’s driven by an old news model and the internet, corporate culture and/or people resistant to change, who cares. It’s an uprising, by the people, for the people and of the people. Things will look way different in 3 years and not everyone will be alive (For the record, cVillain has the lowest life expectancy due to its drug-filled rockstar blogstyle).
Colbert interviews the newspaper lobby after the break…
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Related posts:
- Daily Progress Building For Sale
- Daily Progress Furloughs Employees
- It’s News When Daily Progress Delivers The Washington Post
I’m not sure about that…after all, her son runs CvilleNews and she’s a frequent commenter there.
BTW, I missed all the “stuff” that has gone down in the last few weeks. Sorry to hear about it and hope it works out.
Not sure I agree. Sure, people and their reading/buying/advertising/shopping habits affect the health and life and death of newspapers, but to say that the people themselves are what drives news is a stretch. You can have all the alt-weeklys and all the blogs and all the twitterations you want, but it’s the nuts-and-bolts journalism that gets the job done. Covering planning commission meetings isn’t sexy, but keeping an eye on such things not only keeps everyone honest, but sometimes uncovers a real story. I think the loss of a daily paper is a tragic thing for a community.
Having said that, the DP is an embarrassment of a paper. I just wish someone could find a way to turn it around and make it not only a good paper, but a profitable business.
You can have all the alt-weeklys and all the blogs and all the twitterations you want, but it’s the nuts-and-bolts journalism that gets the job done. Covering planning commission meetings isn’t sexy, but keeping an eye on such things not only keeps everyone honest, but sometimes uncovers a real story.
Charlottesville Tomorrow: http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/
True enough.
You’re absolutely right – they’re an excellent resource. (Not to mention having more in-depth coverage than a paper like the DP.) My only question is with the business model. I think the jury is still out on whether sites like that (and the coverage they provide) will generate enough money (and readers and content and advertising and everything else) to survive. I hope they do.
The Cavalier Daily is magnificent–i’ve tried a dozen times to get a home subscription, but no-go. Most of the UVA stuff/sports is dreck, but they do a very tidy job of selecting local/national/global stories that have immediate bearing and interest without being tiresome. The comics are excellent, overall. I read CD cover-to-cover by preference to any other paper.
I do miss the downtown mall newsstand, where they would hold a copy each of Washington Times and New York Post for me. I can’t imagine buying a DP any day other than Sunday, and even then in coffeeshops usually just grab discarded copies of Wash Post or NYT. There IS something very satisfyng about clipping articles from newspapers and mailing them to folks, rather than simply copy-paste-forward by e-mail.
Agreed. Because today is the 80th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birthday & her museum is on the verge of showing her actual diaries rather than the copies they had out before, I’ve been riffing on the old/new of a diary like hers illustrated with pasted-in pictures and many people’s blog-diaries with cut-and-paste in pictures. The tangibility of paper still has a particular currency.
you need something to read while you’re pooping
I’ll just leave this here.
I saw her drum-kit on Craigslist.
that’s real cool. i didn’t know she could write when she was still young, and i can’t even imagine what the pictures must be like (did she snap them, draw them, or were they given to her and described?)
i guess i only read the part about her learning to say ‘Waaaaa-Waaaaa’ near the well-pump, and to make marks in her nurse’s hand with her fingers.
“Waaaa-waaaa” is the end of the first act: clearly you didn’t return after intermission to see the family (now missing tutor Annie Sullivan) brutally hunted by Nazis & hiding in a warehouse attic. Plus the audience gets to vote for the ending: a) sent off to a concentration camp or b) escaping over the mountains to a singing career in America.
brilliant, oniss. Sorry, i’m just sixteen going on seventeen and need someone older and wiser telling me what to do. {how does one ‘brutally’ hunt? do warehouses have attics?}
I’m guessing that you don’t nee-eed someone older & wiser telling you what to do. I think you just like it that way.
you’re right, oniss: i suspect you know me better than i know myself. perhaps i need someone significantly younger who is not terribly bright and has large breasts that will do what i tell her? got anyone in mind?
/cougars: OUT.; PVCC students: IN.
I’ll give a shout-out to the sports staff of the DP. They provide indepth coverage not only of UVA, but they do a nice job of covering the high-school scene as well. Jerry Ratcliffe, for all his foibles, is an institution in town in terms of local sports coverage, and Jay Jenkins on the Football/Baseball/Women’s Basketball beat is as solid as they come. Whitey Reid needs some distance from Men’s Basketball, but shows some signs of life. If the DP were to go under, that’s what I’d miss the most about it.
thanks for that Stormy! I haven’t got the background to evaluate that aspect of DP’s coverage (nor CD’s sports-coverage). I can add to your encomium that DP-Sports also employs Matt Rosenberg, for now.
Nothing like a bowl of Lucky Charms and a journalistic masterpiece detailing the latest deflowering to occur in the back of a 1992 Volvo 740 station wagon.
I was told that Albemarle was an old Indian word for “where old volvo’s go to die”
There goes your old translation problem again Dieter. It said vulvas.
that’s why floozy moved here
perhaps the excessive humidity of this area is part of the cure?
I moved here because it was a condition of my parole.
If they ever do go under, look for Mathew Rosenberg to file a wrongful termination suit.
I worked in the SF Chronicle/Examiner’s ad design shop for several years prior to moving here. That was ten years ago, and the writing was on the wall then, and that was a much bigger market. We shall see….
The traditional daily paper is on life support in Charlottesville. Arts and culture focused alt-weeklys will have a loger life span however. I hate to say it, but I believe they will see the end someday too.
I strongly believe that hyper-local, specialized web outlets and blogs will eventually grow in credibility as they are embraced by old-school media.
Other markets, much larger markets, don’t have half the print media of Charlottesville. A city this size does not need 2 alt-weeklys, a daily, and dozens of free periodicals. This oversaturation will make it hard for any print publication to stay profitable. (not to mention poor management and waning relevance, *not pointing any fingers at the weeklys)
Arts and culture outlets are extremely valuable in a city like Charlottesville, but in time the print version of it will be replaced by fast bloggy content, reader comments, embedded video and interactive portals.
but you can’t line the bottom of your parakeet-cage with an I-MAC.
LMAO
I had just read this brilliant craigslist ad when you wrote that.
try again
Evil Cockatiel. Odd he’d charge 50 bucks for something that hisses at and bites you. Wait, pimps do that.
Meh. I bet he’s still better than Blockatiel!
These embedded vids make things so sloooow.
Thanks for the mention.
The DP and other “locals” need to read the book Made to Stick – http://www.madetostick.com/ – specifically the chapter that discusses the local newspaper in North Carolina. In it the publisher explains why his paper was successful – it was local. Local, local, local
I get my national/international news from the WSJ, Twitter, Google, etc. etc. I don’t want to read about Iran in the Daily Progress. I want to read about local sports, news, politics, etc.
For instance, I bought the Daily Progress after the cvillepiedown to see if the picture of my daughter made it to print (incidentally, it was a great picture that Matthew Rosenberg took)
For local news and politics, Charlottesville tomorrow beats the heck out of all other local outlets – their content, their archiving, the volume and quality …
Totally agree about cville tomorrow (see @3 above). They are very good. I’ve learned a LOT about local issues from them. Their podcast thingies are, while sometimes boring, very helpful.
Yea, Jim Duncan’s right, and this is something the editors at the DP understand. Unfortunately, their hands are largely tied by a group of knuckleheads in Richmond who can’t see beyond the next quarterly earnings report.
All that said, unlike a lot of big metro dailies, the DP still makes money, so don’t look for them to close up shop anytime too too soon.