December 21, 2008

Let the presses stop so the Press can survive?

Jeff Jarvis makes a good case for turning off the presses and going online only.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting article, yet perhaps slightly deceiving. Part of the reason that the L.A. Times' website's hits are increasing is because people in smaller communities across the nation, like Bristol, are reading articles on big newspaper websites instead of solely on their local paper's website or print product.

L.A. Times' relationship with Google makes it consistently one of the first links that shows up on Google News or during a news search. While it is encouraging for bigger papers that their websites possibly could sustain them on smaller scales, it seems that success comes at the expense of smaller papers. In effect, L.A. Times is stealing Bristol's customers.

It's like watching Walmart gain customers, even during an economic downfall. Each new customer to a giant was once a customer at some smaller store.

JRC is so secretive that it would be difficult to ever learn to what extent an electronic-only newspaper could work for them, but it is definitely the way to think for the future. I applaud that you are beginning to see that as an option.

Anonymous said...

While big newspaper websites may be attractive for national news small newspapers sites could be attractive for local news, issurs, events and sports. A site that covers local news, etc., could survive if the business plan was sound and it could figure a way to attract local advertisers.