Comments on: Why the Internet isn’t friendly to newspapers

By: oliviaharis

oliviaharis — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:37:27 +0000

The main business difference between print media and web media, as far as circulation, is how the numbers are done. For web media, real time statistics show a lot about which parts of a website are most popular, and how many people actually visit. In the print media the numbers are basically ‘how many are circulated’.
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oliviaharis
opinion leader

By: dk

dk — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:57:30 +0000

(and when I describe pro football as a “non-sport,” my metric has to do with whether it happens locally. We’ve proven, over the past decade, that we don’t want or care about having an NFL team. Maybe that’s because we’re too busy with motocross, surfing, and dozens of other hometown sports that the Times virtually ignores.)

By: dk

dk — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:53:23 +0000

Besides the argument that the “most emailed stories” may or may not be a metric of anything, I’d add that the Los Angeles Times has – sadly – been, for the most part, a failure to its local readers for years. From the front page to sports to business, it hasn’t understood the city. It chooses to go for national prestige stories over covering local issues in the neighborhoods; it chooses to cover non-sports – like pro football – over sports that people actually do in Los Angeles, like surfing and mountain biking. It covers the stock market more than it covers Hollywood (at least until recently) in business. The Times beat itself into submission until it created a situation where it was so weak that it allowed predators in – who then were able to further beat it down, creating an even worse vortex, where the paper began collapsing on itself, losing what talent it had, becoming worse, which led to losing more talent, onward and onward.

I love newspapers, and I’m ashamed – almost – to say this, but I welcome the eventual departure of the Los Angeles Times. It will not be the cataclysm many say it will be; it will certainly not be the disaster nostalgic current and former staffers say it will be. I believe that a new local paper – which we desperately need – will (and can only) emerge when the Times vanishes.

Sooner, rather than later.

Finally, and one last bit of advice, to reiterate what I started with: if you really believe that what people are emailing is a meaningful metric – which I doubt – then don’t blaming the readers. Don’t even blame current management. The blame begins, at least, when the Times lost touch with readership years ago, and decided that it was more important than – and, from its content mix, embarrassed to be from – Los Angeles.

By: sl

sl — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:38:41 +0000

You post the MOST EMAILED section, not the most viewed. I am tired of seeing these stories bemoaning lack of readers’ depth that cite these lists. Right now the top MOST VIEWED stories on the LATimes website includes news on the bailout and Ted Stevens–hard news. The most emailed story is some scandal about a sheriff’s deputy torturing his wife. I’d argue that lists of most emailed stories are often fluffier, because readers assume that their friends will have read the hard news stories, but might have missed the less important, but still interesting, crime and celebrity stories.

By: Michele Rosenberg

Michele Rosenberg — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:25:34 +0000

My local newspaper The Baltimore Sun is dying. When I was growing up this newspaper had foreign bureaus ranging from U.S.S.R to Israel. Now we can’t even get decent news about a city council hearing. Most of the reporters no longer come from Baltimore and don’t have an institutional memory.
For my national and world news I can turn to the Internet. What do I do for local news?
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I am currently writing for a monthly newspaper which gives me the opportunity to do in depth reporting on specific “not breaking news” subjects. Perhaps this is the answer for those seeking more information. Maybe we will see some disgruntled journalists and editors starting new weekly and monthly newspapers.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:46:54 +0000

Some good points made already. I agree with John Cannon that having the “most viewed” list creates a cycle — I admit that I frequently click through to the articles on that list, even if they aren’t something I would otherwise read. I figure if so many people found it interesting, I might too.

Another point is that while I do look at that type of article, those aren’t the things I go to the newspaper sites for in the first place. I can get most of that stuff elsewhere. I go to the newspaper sites for quality, in-depth reporting. While I’m there, I do tend to also look at the more lightweight stuff, but if it weren’t for the in-depth reporting, I wouldn’t visit the site anymore. It would be a huge mistake for the newspapers to see these stats and think that they should replace all of their meaty articles with fluff — that’s the point at which they lose their differentiating factor, and I will stop reading.

Another important point is that any given in-depth article may be interesting to a smaller percentage of readers than a crime story. I certainly don’t read them all. But many readers will be interested in at least some of them. If we each read 1/5 of in-depth articles but 1/3 of fluff articles (they have broad interest and are quick to read), that will clearly push the fluff up the list, but it doesn’t mean the other stuff is unimportant. Would be interesting to look at stats like the percentage of readers who read at least one in-depth article, rather than just the individual articles that had the most readers.

By: Just Thefacts

Just Thefacts — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:16:11 +0000

Actually, I draw the opposite conclusion from that LA Times’ most viewed list. Contrary to the stereotype of web users reading only celebrity gossip, etc, five of those top 10 stories (Nos. 1, 4, 5, 8 and 9) are enterprise public affairs reporting produced by some of those 600-plus journalists busting their asses. Maybe there’s hope for journalism on the web afterall.

By: ffafooey

ffafooey — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:48:04 +0000

damn commie

By: John Cannon

John Cannon — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:48:03 +0000

I think this problem is a little self-fulfilling. When you put a list of “most viewed” stories in a prominent place on your site, those stories will get more and more views, at the expense of more important and more in-depth stories. Many times the SF Gate site (San Francisco Chronicle) will have stories on its “most viewed” list that are a week old, but people still check them out.

Maybe rather than “most viewed,” a paper could do a list of “Our Best Work,” and give it a prominent place on the site. Fluff will still probably draw more clicks, but I would think that many more people would be exposed to important stories that way.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:13:54 +0000

Unfortunately the post reflects the fact that newspapers continue to blame ex-readers for their decline rather than looking at their product. I for one value comprehensive news reporting very highly, but have found that few newspapers (and particularly not the Times) offer comprehensive unbiased coverage. If I want to read the half of the story that supports the political narrative du jour, why not go to the Huffington Post where at least it’s free and not 24 hours old?