I noticed that the Albany Times-Union is jacking up the price of its daily edition by 33% to $1 effective next week.
With newspaper sales plummeting due to rapidly deteriorating quality and changing readership habits, doubling the price of such a product in only a few years hardly seems like a wise business decision.
The only sense it makes is if it's intended to drive T-U readers toward the paper's decent website. The website no doubt generates less ad revenue than the print edition but also has significantly lower costs.
People involved in the physical production of a print newspaper are far more likely to be unionized than the tech people who maintain a website. So perhaps it's also an attempt by the paper to finally break its unions by directing people to the website. The Albany Newspaper Guild is urging a boycott of the daily as part of its dispute with the paper.
T-U editor Rex Smith, a regular participant on WAMC's Media Project, has steadfastly insisted that newspaper websites are a drain on resources. But the situation is pretty sketchy. Why would they further alienate their paying customers with yet another price rise when a free, supposedly money-losing alternative, is easily available?
Showing posts with label Times-Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Times-Union. Show all posts
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
You can't make this stuff up
So I was listening to WAMC's The Media Project this afternoon. The commentators, including Times-Union editor Rex Smith, were complaining about news stories about animals.
And not more than a few minutes later, I saw a news article on The Times-Union's website about... a fake animal.
And not more than a few minutes later, I saw a news article on The Times-Union's website about... a fake animal.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Newspapers' race to the bottom
As the newspaper industry continues to struggle nationally, some papers are succombing more and more to sensationalism. The "infotainment" virus, which has already destroyed television news, increasingly plagues newspapers as well.
Here are two local examples.
Ken Tingley, supremo at the Glens Falls Post-Star, makes regular appearances on WAMC's The Roundtable program to discuss local issues.
On today's Roundtable, the ONLY issue Tingley was willing to discuss was the recent death of former Major League pitcher Johnny Podres, who was the first ever World Series MVP. Podres helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win their only World Series in 1955.
Podres was from neighboring Queensbury and spent most of his life in the region so it was a perfectly legitimate story to discuss.
But was this the ONLY big story in the area? Tingley was specifically asked by the host if he had anything else to talk about and he said no.
Meanwhile, the front page of his own paper today features a rather significant update in the saga of a missing local boy, whose adoptive father was named a 'person of interest' by police.
How about the huge story about a state court ruling that, if upheld, will costs local towns tens of millions of dollars?!
I have nothing against Johnny Podres, nor do I have any problem with Tingley talking about his life. But surely he could've found a minute to talk a little about a missing 12-year old or a hugely significant court decision.
Perhaps this isn't surprising, since Tingley is a former sports' editor of The Post-Star. But it's a sad reflection on the priorities of the managing editor of the only daily newspaper serving much of the southern Adirondacks.
But they are not the only paper in the area to descend into tabloidism.
Take The Times-Union's treatment of John Sweeney.
The Albany paper felt it necessary to run a big non-story about a dispute between the former Republican congressman and a taxi company.
Apparently, Sweeney got a cab ride home but didn't immediately pay because he thought a friend of his had paid the fare for him.
When he was later informed of the discrepency, Sweeney paid the company.
Police were called but before they could even charge him, Sweeney cleared up the misunderstanding.
There's nothing in The Times-Union's reporting that suggests this was anything more than an honest mistake.
So where's the story?
Oh wait, did I forget to mention that he was coming home from a strip club?
I have no sympathy whatsoever for John Sweeney. I voted against him every time he ran for office. I cringed when he went down to Florida in 2000 to disrupt the vote count like some common street thug. I've long felt him a lowlife slimeball, both as a politician and as a human being. His actions in the last year and a half have only strengthened that belief.
But John Sweeney has been out of the public eye since his election defeat in November 2006. He hasn't spouted off on local or national politics. He's expressed no interest in getting his old job back. He's just an ordinary citizen. A lowlife, slimeball, ordinary citizen, but an ordinary citizen nonetheless.
As The Times-Union pointed out: Sweeney's driver's license was suspended in November for six months following his guilty plea to driving while intoxicated. He also was fined $1,000 for the incident. Sweeney was pulled over on the Northway and admitted to drinking at the Envy Lounge in Albany. His blood-alcohol content was 0.18, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
I have no problem with any media outlet reporting when he's actually charged with a crime.
But this taxi cab spat is a non-issue that was sensationalized by the paper only because the tawdry strip club aspect... something which was really irrelevant to what little story there was anyway.
(I once wrote a check to a local pizza place that bounced because of a mixup in my checking account. As soon as I was informed of this by the restaurant, I immediately went down there and paid my bill. This never made it to the front page of the newspaper... because there was nothing erotic about it.)
No public interest was served by this being fabricated into a big deal; it was only sensationalism to sell some extra copies and get the T-U some publicity. It's sad, because the daily is actually doing some excellent journalism on the commerce in steroids that seems to be centered in the Albany region. But that good journalism is tarnished by its proximity to the shameless tabloidism surrounding Sweeney.
I'm not the only one to be disturbed by the increasingly superficial tendencies of the local media. Adirondack Almanack did an excellent analysis of how important stories were covered by the mainstream media as compared to by blogs.
There's nothing I need to add to Almanack's commentary except that it's very much worth reading.
Newspapers are at a crossroads. Many are making the wrong decision. Newspapers can no longer compete with television for sensationalism, least of all with cable 'news' outlets. The Times-Union or The Post-Star out-tabloid The New York Post so they shouldn't bother trying. The risk is that in attempting to do so, they will also turn off people who want good journalism.
What papers that claim to be serious need to do is focus on serious journalism. People who want a superficial scan of current events, with a focus on Brittney and the random, upper middle class, photogenic, missing white girl of the week, will watch television because that's the medium that can best feed this appetite. People who want a more in-depth look at real events both in this country and abroad will read newspapers... provided they can find one that serves their needs.
It's a bit like Wal-Mart. Mom and Pop stores will never be able to compete with Wal-Mart when it comes to price because of corporate welfare, Wal-Mart's dubious business practices, etc.
Instead, what small local businesses need to do is find their niche. They need to focus on offering stuff of a higher quality to appeal to the consumers who don't want crap and are willing to pay a little extra for it. Sucessful small businesses are those who try to find their niche, instead of engaging in a race to the bottom that they can't possibly win.
Newspapers would do well to emulate this model.
Update: The most read news article in the last seven days at PostStar.com is a piece on six kids that were arrested for underage drinking. This has received 75 percent more hits than the story on Podres' death, although the Podres' story was posted a day later. The most commented stories on the site were ones about a drunk and stoned driver who refused to apologies to the families of the people he killed (38 comments) and a big felony drug seizure as well as ones about the missing kid (30 comments) and the drinking party. No story about Podres' even hit the 9 comments level. So maybe the paper's readers aren't quite as superficial as Tingley thinks they are.
Here are two local examples.
Ken Tingley, supremo at the Glens Falls Post-Star, makes regular appearances on WAMC's The Roundtable program to discuss local issues.
On today's Roundtable, the ONLY issue Tingley was willing to discuss was the recent death of former Major League pitcher Johnny Podres, who was the first ever World Series MVP. Podres helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win their only World Series in 1955.
Podres was from neighboring Queensbury and spent most of his life in the region so it was a perfectly legitimate story to discuss.
But was this the ONLY big story in the area? Tingley was specifically asked by the host if he had anything else to talk about and he said no.
Meanwhile, the front page of his own paper today features a rather significant update in the saga of a missing local boy, whose adoptive father was named a 'person of interest' by police.
How about the huge story about a state court ruling that, if upheld, will costs local towns tens of millions of dollars?!
I have nothing against Johnny Podres, nor do I have any problem with Tingley talking about his life. But surely he could've found a minute to talk a little about a missing 12-year old or a hugely significant court decision.
Perhaps this isn't surprising, since Tingley is a former sports' editor of The Post-Star. But it's a sad reflection on the priorities of the managing editor of the only daily newspaper serving much of the southern Adirondacks.
But they are not the only paper in the area to descend into tabloidism.
Take The Times-Union's treatment of John Sweeney.
The Albany paper felt it necessary to run a big non-story about a dispute between the former Republican congressman and a taxi company.
Apparently, Sweeney got a cab ride home but didn't immediately pay because he thought a friend of his had paid the fare for him.
When he was later informed of the discrepency, Sweeney paid the company.
Police were called but before they could even charge him, Sweeney cleared up the misunderstanding.
There's nothing in The Times-Union's reporting that suggests this was anything more than an honest mistake.
So where's the story?
Oh wait, did I forget to mention that he was coming home from a strip club?
I have no sympathy whatsoever for John Sweeney. I voted against him every time he ran for office. I cringed when he went down to Florida in 2000 to disrupt the vote count like some common street thug. I've long felt him a lowlife slimeball, both as a politician and as a human being. His actions in the last year and a half have only strengthened that belief.
But John Sweeney has been out of the public eye since his election defeat in November 2006. He hasn't spouted off on local or national politics. He's expressed no interest in getting his old job back. He's just an ordinary citizen. A lowlife, slimeball, ordinary citizen, but an ordinary citizen nonetheless.
As The Times-Union pointed out: Sweeney's driver's license was suspended in November for six months following his guilty plea to driving while intoxicated. He also was fined $1,000 for the incident. Sweeney was pulled over on the Northway and admitted to drinking at the Envy Lounge in Albany. His blood-alcohol content was 0.18, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
I have no problem with any media outlet reporting when he's actually charged with a crime.
But this taxi cab spat is a non-issue that was sensationalized by the paper only because the tawdry strip club aspect... something which was really irrelevant to what little story there was anyway.
(I once wrote a check to a local pizza place that bounced because of a mixup in my checking account. As soon as I was informed of this by the restaurant, I immediately went down there and paid my bill. This never made it to the front page of the newspaper... because there was nothing erotic about it.)
No public interest was served by this being fabricated into a big deal; it was only sensationalism to sell some extra copies and get the T-U some publicity. It's sad, because the daily is actually doing some excellent journalism on the commerce in steroids that seems to be centered in the Albany region. But that good journalism is tarnished by its proximity to the shameless tabloidism surrounding Sweeney.
I'm not the only one to be disturbed by the increasingly superficial tendencies of the local media. Adirondack Almanack did an excellent analysis of how important stories were covered by the mainstream media as compared to by blogs.
There's nothing I need to add to Almanack's commentary except that it's very much worth reading.
Newspapers are at a crossroads. Many are making the wrong decision. Newspapers can no longer compete with television for sensationalism, least of all with cable 'news' outlets. The Times-Union or The Post-Star out-tabloid The New York Post so they shouldn't bother trying. The risk is that in attempting to do so, they will also turn off people who want good journalism.
What papers that claim to be serious need to do is focus on serious journalism. People who want a superficial scan of current events, with a focus on Brittney and the random, upper middle class, photogenic, missing white girl of the week, will watch television because that's the medium that can best feed this appetite. People who want a more in-depth look at real events both in this country and abroad will read newspapers... provided they can find one that serves their needs.
It's a bit like Wal-Mart. Mom and Pop stores will never be able to compete with Wal-Mart when it comes to price because of corporate welfare, Wal-Mart's dubious business practices, etc.
Instead, what small local businesses need to do is find their niche. They need to focus on offering stuff of a higher quality to appeal to the consumers who don't want crap and are willing to pay a little extra for it. Sucessful small businesses are those who try to find their niche, instead of engaging in a race to the bottom that they can't possibly win.
Newspapers would do well to emulate this model.
Update: The most read news article in the last seven days at PostStar.com is a piece on six kids that were arrested for underage drinking. This has received 75 percent more hits than the story on Podres' death, although the Podres' story was posted a day later. The most commented stories on the site were ones about a drunk and stoned driver who refused to apologies to the families of the people he killed (38 comments) and a big felony drug seizure as well as ones about the missing kid (30 comments) and the drinking party. No story about Podres' even hit the 9 comments level. So maybe the paper's readers aren't quite as superficial as Tingley thinks they are.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
"No comment... now stop refusing to tell my side!"
Glens Falls' Post-Star managing editor Ken Tingley had a good column blasting NY Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
A few days ago, the Albany Times-Union ran a piece detailing how Bruno allegedly used taxpayer-funded aircraft to attend political fundraisers. Additionally, the Albany paper obtained documents where Bruno had asserted the aircraft were used for official state business.
Essentially, Bruno was committing the same offense that forced the resignation of then-state comptroller Alan Hevesi. Bruno had demanded Hevesi quit.
Bruno refused to comment for the Times-Union article but later held a press conference to answer the allegations.
"Since I have been leader I was told by the State Police that there were so many threats on my life that they could not cover them," said Bruno.
I know Albany's a morass but to listen to his rant, you'd think the politico was in more danger than a GI in Baghdad.
Anyway, Tingley rightly lambastes Bruno. During his temper tantrum, the crybaby senator insisted he was going to cancel his subscription to the T-U and encouraged everyone else to do the same.
I'm sure Hearst Newspapers is quaking in its boots!
Tingley also called Bruno on what is a huge pet peeve of mine. Bruno consciously refused to provide a comment for the T-U article only later to snivel that... the paper only provided one side of the story.
I think anyone who does this should be publicly tarred and feathered. How is a media outlet supposed to provide your side of the story if you refuse to give it to them?
[Full disclosure: apparently Bruno is distantly related to me, though I've never received a ride in state aircraft nor have I received any of the other perks that have gotten him into trouble.]
A few days ago, the Albany Times-Union ran a piece detailing how Bruno allegedly used taxpayer-funded aircraft to attend political fundraisers. Additionally, the Albany paper obtained documents where Bruno had asserted the aircraft were used for official state business.
Essentially, Bruno was committing the same offense that forced the resignation of then-state comptroller Alan Hevesi. Bruno had demanded Hevesi quit.
Bruno refused to comment for the Times-Union article but later held a press conference to answer the allegations.
"Since I have been leader I was told by the State Police that there were so many threats on my life that they could not cover them," said Bruno.
I know Albany's a morass but to listen to his rant, you'd think the politico was in more danger than a GI in Baghdad.
Anyway, Tingley rightly lambastes Bruno. During his temper tantrum, the crybaby senator insisted he was going to cancel his subscription to the T-U and encouraged everyone else to do the same.
I'm sure Hearst Newspapers is quaking in its boots!
Tingley also called Bruno on what is a huge pet peeve of mine. Bruno consciously refused to provide a comment for the T-U article only later to snivel that... the paper only provided one side of the story.
I think anyone who does this should be publicly tarred and feathered. How is a media outlet supposed to provide your side of the story if you refuse to give it to them?
[Full disclosure: apparently Bruno is distantly related to me, though I've never received a ride in state aircraft nor have I received any of the other perks that have gotten him into trouble.]
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