Would you miss newspapers if they stopped publishing?
I might be sorry for starting this topic in the Talk of the Day. But we’ll see. I predict I will get a lot of people ranting about the “liberal bias” in the media. I’m hopeful that regardless of how you feel about the Post-Dispatch, you might appreciate the role newspapers try to play in our democracy and respond from that point of view.
But, as you have heard, the news out of the newspaper industry hasn’t been great lately.
- The Chicago Tribune’s parent Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection.
- The New York Times Company is borrowing about a quarter billion bucks against its new Manhattan building.
- The Detroit newspapers — The Free-Press and the News — might cut home delivery most days.
- The Christian Science Monitor has announced it will stop printing a print newspaper, just as the Capital Times in Madison, Wisc., has.
And those are just some of the relatively recent developments. My colleague, Erica Smith, has documented the loss of jobs at news organizations on her blog, Paper Cuts.
Now, if you’re here, reading this blog, it tells me that you care about news. Otherwise, you’d be wasting your time doing something else from your office computer right now. So is news important to you? Would you miss the newspaper if it stopped publishing?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Kurt, I could do without print newspaper throughout the week, but I enjoy spending part of my weekend reading the Sunday paper…old habits die hard.
Just to add to my point some sharp eyed reader caught sause in the AP feed about the poisoned dog…
Democracy is dead — if it ever lived at all (sigh).
I’ve seen a few comments here about the editorial pages, and I realized that in fact, these editorials are one of the main reasons that print media is dying out. While it may sometimes be difficult to find unbiased, straighforward news reporting on the web, there is NO shortage of opinions online. The web has given us all a voice, making the days when we had to open up the newspaper to read an opinion piece about a bit of news or politics written by one voice. Gone are the days of one or two people in a newspaper handing down their opinions from on high like a gift to the masses. We can all go online now and read any and every opinion on any topic known to man, including our own if we choose.
So really, if print media decides that their editorial perspective is more important than the straighforward reporting of the news, they are making an error in judgement. We don’t need thier opinions anymore. We have our own, and millions of others right at our fingertips.
Kurt, yes the Printed page of a newspaper in valuable because it repeats the news you have already heard on 10 different radio stations and at least 5 Television stations. It’s a historicial document when it is published. I can’t imagine anyone who would buy a newspaper unless his/her name was in it as the person of the week or something similar.
My favorite newspapers to read are those that are found in the small midwest towns or papers in the south. They have these great articles about things that would only make sense to the people who live there but are fun to read about anyway. They write about people who live in their communities, their weddings in elaborate details, the childrens births and the residents deaths in such a sweet way that you can feel the community hug. Our paper is cold. It has a few pages about local news, more about world news and then we have the sports novelette that goes on forever. Nothing fun to read about. I want to “read the paper” not just browse through quickly and then toss. I know in an earlier post I said that it was a debate we have been having to stop wasting the money on the paper, after reading these posts and thinking about it more I may just do it.
………….A HOUSE DIVIDED (An idea for saving print news)
Reading the posts here its plain to see that many perceive the Post Dispatch as a Liberal/Democrat newspaper, and despise it for that reason.
I doubt that perceived newspaper bias is unique to St Louis, nor are daily newspapers in financial trouble unique to St Louis.
The newspapers ought to pick up on that perception and play on it, by publishing Blue and Red editions of their papers on an alternating daily basis. Divide the newspaper journalists into two camps, the conservatives and the liberals.
On one day the Blue team gets to pick what stories go onto the front page and get control of the editorial page, the next day it would be the Red teams turn. Get some heated print debates going between the Blue and Red editions, put a new twist on the old product, hype it up.
The idea here is not to make one side look good or bad, the idea would be to renew interest in the print news and sell some newspapers!!
Some say a house divided will fall, I think it might just be what print news needs to survive.
Does anyone else find it curious that all of these Post-Dispatch haters who posted about how worthless and biased the Post-Dispatch is are constantly trolling the Post-Dispatch’s web site for the opportunity to vent? If they are so thoroughly offended by the “bias” of this paper, why in Heaven’s name do they continually log onto its website? I’m sure Fox Noise has some sort of web site where they can blissfully commune with like-minded haters. Why not go there (and don’t let the door hit you in the butt).
I would miss newspapers very much. Although the Post Dispatch doesn’t always share my views, reading the newspaper is how I remain aware of our towns happenings and actions. The Post Dispatch allows me to remain informed and gives me the opportunity to support favorable situations or try to change perceived social misdirections.
In a way I would missed the print version of the newspaper.The Post-Dispatch
seems to be doing a really good job with their news web site,but seems to be having trouble generating reveues from this relatively new media source.Those who have the right vision of the future would be the ones who survived.