• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Did you get a newspaper today?

V

vchimpanzee

Some of the newspapers I look at online don't have a print edition today but they do have a few pages in what is called the eEdition and with my library card I have access to those.

But the newspaper I had delivered this morning (with more ad sections than even a typical Sunday paper) is co-owned with other newspapers who may be doing this: the paper was printed before there was any recent news to put in it, so we are not getting up-to-date news by reading that paper.

For that we must go to TV or radio or online.
 
It may be because of the pandemic that this one library I go to has these actual newspapers online. It did have text of selected articles, which was very useful because I kept running into subscriber only content. My first thought was they decided to make the newspapers available online instead of having the actual papers, because for a while we couldn't go to the library. Two years later and nothing has changed.
 
I sell radio advertising and in one town I work, the weekly newspaper publisher wants to never see another hard copy of the paper. An online subscription is set via email with password to unlock the PDF. It displays just like a newspaper page complete with ads. He has gone from 2,000 to 800 print subs in the past 6 years even though his town has doubled in population. A print subscription gets a free online sub as well. With postal regulations, lengthy delivery times through USPS, paper costs increasing by so much and printing and overnight shipping being so pricey, I suspect lots of publishers would rather write, layout and epublish rather than all the expenses and time to do a conventional paper.
 
Newspapers: Yesterday's news tomorrow.

Lots of online newspapers are in this same category as well.
 
I usually pick up a Thanksgiving day paper for the Black Friday ads but there was next to nothing In the one we got yesterday in the Marion/Carbondale IL area where we were at my wife's sisters house. But then we found out that it was Wednesday's paper and either there was no Thursday paper or the store didn't get them.
 
anotherguyTN said:
I usually pick up a Thanksgiving day paper for the Black Friday ads but there was next to nothing In the one we got yesterday in the Marion/Carbondale IL area where we were at my wife's sisters house. But then we found out that it was Wednesday's paper and either there was no Thursday paper or the store didn't get them.
Click to expand...
Just three "inserts" in the last two days in my San Jose Mercury, Big5, Lowes and Macys. Last year there were a bunch. Sidebar--Since it's Medicare enrollment season, everyday there are full page ads pushing the Medicare advantage plans. Those will go away after the first week of December and the only full page ads will be ones for a local termite treatment company.
 
xkxrx said:
Just three "inserts" in the last two days in my San Jose Mercury, Big5, Lowes and Macys. Last year there were a bunch. Sidebar--Since it's Medicare enrollment season, everyday there are full page ads pushing the Medicare advantage plans. Those will go away after the first week of December and the only full page ads will be ones for a local termite treatment company.
Click to expand...
In the paper I had there was only Kohl's. Dollar General, Kroger (Since it was a Wednesday paper), and a few regional stores like Rural King and Menard's, but no Walmart, Target, Lowe's or Best Buy. all of who had stores in the area, unless they may have been in Friday's paper.
 
Last edited:
No I didnā€™t, my online social places already alerted me to my big black friday purchase being on sale by early this week. Local papers here are all Gannett ruined anyways.
 
I haven't seen what The Charlotte Observer did (still outside waiting for me), but I saw what the co-owned Raleigh News & Observer did.

Because I can use my library card to see some actual newspapers as they appear to those who have the print edition, I was able to see the Thursday front page of the Greensboro News & Record, which did not print a paper on Thanksgiving but had an eEdition provided to subscribers and to the news service that the library subscribes to. There was a large headline and a large photo related to the Walmart shooting. Also on the front page was the Ukraine story.

While I didn't checked to see what the News & Observer had on Ukraine, I did notice that Friday's paper did not have the Walmart story. Thursday's paper was obviously not printed after that happened. There was a story about shootings in general which mentioned the Walmart story, and a follow-up story about Walmart (which didn't refer to a story that was already printed). This is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, the News & Record, which did not have a business page in the joke of an eEdition, did not have one on Friday either. So were the markets closed on Wednesday? No, you don't get to say "but the markets were closed on Thursday". How did the Observer cover the markets? I guess I'll find out in a couple of hours.
 
I read My Charlotte Observer yesterday. The eEdition (the only thing we get on Saturday) did have further details about the Walmart shooting but ignoring the fact I am sent online for Saturday's paper, the Friday print edition had only a general article about shootings which happened to mention what happened at Walmart. At least they had Wednesday's financial markets, but Tuesday's were never printed. We were simply told on Wednesday to go online because they couldn't be bothered to have a deadline that would allow them to put that information in the paper. Never mind that Thursday's paper was surely printed in time for that.

I read about the Walmart shooting in the eEdition that looked like a printed newspaper that subscribers of another paper were given instead of a real one. Only because of my library card.
 
b-turner said:
I sell radio advertising and in one town I work, the weekly newspaper publisher wants to never see another hard copy of the paper. An online subscription is set via email with password to unlock the PDF. It displays just like a newspaper page complete with ads. He has gone from 2,000 to 800 print subs in the past 6 years even though his town has doubled in population. A print subscription gets a free online sub as well. With postal regulations, lengthy delivery times through USPS, paper costs increasing by so much and printing and overnight shipping being so pricey, I suspect lots of publishers would rather write, layout and epublish rather than all the expenses and time to do a conventional paper.
Click to expand...
This is the trend nearly everywhere. Where I live, most if not all the boxes they used to have on street corners selling newspapers are gone. First, they were subject to vandalism, and there was nothing to stop people from paying, opening the thing and taking several papers if they wished. On most days there were several papers left unsold (waste/spoilage). Also, the Sunday edition here once cost $1.50. Now it's almost $4. Few people carry that amount of quarters to feed into a machine to buy a newspaper. Here, if you want the print edition you need to go to a grocery or convenience store to buy one. Subscriptions of "newspapers" are way down..But for many of the reasons you describe, you can buy the online only version of the same rag for 6 months for less $$ than it costs to by just one of their Sunday printed editions. It really makes it a no-brainer for consumers who are able and don't mind using their computers or smart devices to read the news, and it helps the newspaper publishers reduce waste and significantly lower their costs (cost of paper and materials, staff, trucks and costs related to traditional "paper" distribution, etc. etc.)
 
BomberOtt said:
Local papers here are all Gannett ruined anyways.
Click to expand...

Bumping this up-- this is why I started collecting older papers through EBay (I have a huge collection of such, and many of them are Sundays); because they were actually newspapers, and had much interesting reading material (Sunday comics, TV guide, Sunday mags, and other treats), for low, low cover prices then (I may pay a pretty penny for them now, but it's far more worth it than trying to shell out to get what passes for a paper these days).
Mikey Radio said:
Also, the Sunday edition here once cost $1.50. Now it's almost $4. Few people carry that amount of quarters to feed into a machine to buy a newspaper.
Click to expand...

Again, why bother having that kind of change anyway, when you don't get what you pay for? It's like a reversal of the old Ingles grocery store advertising slogan "You get a lot more, you pay a lot less" (in essence, "You pay a lot more, you get a lot less").
 
Gannett runs the once proud daily (except Saturday) paper in my area. I buy an over priced coffee at local "not" Starbucks place and read it free each day. Sometimes there is a local story. Mostly it's regional nonsense copied and pasted from USA Today. The file photos used are poorly chosen often showing a building covered with snow in a summer story. There is no reason to read a local paper except for obits and the local school honor role if in fact the local students can read and perform at grade level.

Before we get all smirky, when was the last time a smaller market radio station had a real news presence?
 
To answer your question: the small market station I work for has a news presence and we did it because the daily Gannett paper went to twice a week. Needless to say were #1 and by a longshot because of local news, getting out in the community and high school sports.
 
Hyrum said:
Before we get all smirky, when was the last time a smaller market radio station had a real news presence?
Click to expand...
Five days a week I hear a local newscast when my clock radio comes on each morning. Now it's not a market, but the newspaper is only twice a week. Sometimes it's actual audio from the country commissioners or school board. Not a brief quote, either.
 
Meanwhile...

Nearly 25% of Arizona Daily Star newsroom laid off

From the top editor on down, the Arizona Daily Star staff was cut by nearly one-quarter on Monday, as the newspaper's corporate chain owners told local journalists they were being laid off.
www.tucsonsentinel.com www.tucsonsentinel.com

A blow-by-blow description of the layoffs at the only major paper in Southern Arizona. The other one folded way back in 2009.

Yes, plenty of others in the smaller communities - weeklies, mainly - and a few of those laid off over the years have went to work at the site that had that story, Tucson Sentinel.

Another archaic relic of the past?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom