Kinja reply list

Read More
ARP2Hamilton Nolan
8/05/14 8:47am
I presume Koch or Murdoch will buy up these papers and use them to provide legitimacy and an echo chamber to whatever right wing talking points or stories they wish to push. At they same time, they can decry the very "liberal media" that they own most of and then push the conversation further right. Rinse and repeat.
Reply
- Read More
  monkmanARP2
  8/05/14 11:34am
  Perhaps..if that happens, it would be a repeat of the early part of the 20th century when Hearst and Pulitzer bought up dozens of papers and had editors in place to parrot the publisher's line on the topic of the day.
  Reply
- Read More
  ARP2monkman
  8/05/14 11:56am
  Yeah, but they owned those papers to make money on those papers. I don't think there's the same goal. Now, they will break even or even be a "loss leader." In that, they can influence policy/ elections to achieve better outcomes for their other businesses.
  Reply
Read More
Malacoda, Recumbent on the Burning Sand.Hamilton Nolan
8/05/14 8:44am
in the same sense that you "spin off" a trash bag for easier tying before you place it in the garbage can.

Sweet!
Reply
Read More
RogueMandaHamilton Nolan
8/05/14 8:47am
This pisses me off— and for reference, Scripps just announced it was doing the same last week. (It may have been covered here already.)

I don't know how Gannett worked, but back in newspapers' heyday, when they could have been saving profits and investing them in preparing for the more web-based future, Scripps started taking those profits and funneling them into cable television channels. But when the cable channels became profitable, they spun the cable channels off into their own company and left the newspapers to swing. Now they're "diversifying" even more to throw the newspapers out to public ownership. Maybe it will help, since being part of a "family company" didn't do dick for most of those papers.
Reply
- Read More
  imrootRogueManda
  8/05/14 10:51am
  The SNI split was interesting; Fortunately for me, I wasn't around at the time, but, Scripps and SNI shared a data center and a whole shit ton of other things. Frankly, the newspaper group was shit on a lot — their writers were forced to drive content to the paywall, paywalls were largely unsuccessful, and the technology was nine years old that drove their websites. Scripps did have an amazing digital team that brought a lot of neat and interesting technologies to the masses, but, now that they've focused on TV and Radio, I expect to see the same game plan that they've done for their TV stations — outsourcing their website management (honestly, Scripps should *own* EndPlay), and driving down media operations to a skeleton crew at each station, doing the bare minimum needed to get a decent rating in the town.
  
  There seems like there's a fair amount of cruft on the 29th floor; it was my understanding that they diversified newspaper ad sales to a central location for all of their media properties — so I'm sure that's not going to be carried over to the new location. I just feel bad for some of the great folks who worked there (keeping things running with hay baler twine and duct tape) who have been shuttled around Cincy and Knoxville and back for the last few years.
  
  The stories I could tell.
  Reply
- Read More
  RunaboutRogueManda
  8/05/14 11:33am
  Are you suggesting that the owners or management of Scripps should have used the newspaper division's profits to further the newspaper division? If so, why?
  
  If I start a business manufacturing the best microwave ovens and then begin using those profits to develop an entirely new technology that renders all microwaves obsolete, have I done something wrong? Is there something immoral or unethical about it?
  
  Isn't it better to ascertain the coming end of a particular way of doing things (i.e. print media) and begin investing in alternatives that you perceive to have more promise?
  Reply
Read More
amgarreHamilton Nolan
8/05/14 9:52am
Be careful what you wish for. If Gawker or HuffPo or Buzzfeed couldn't link to real newspaper sites with real reporters who go out and get real news, the Internet would just be a bunch of stupid quizzes, recipes, and the rants of narcissistic blowhards opining on stuff they know nothing about.
Reply
Read More
SwipeRightForJesusHamilton Nolan
8/05/14 9:15am
There are some really good people and talented writers that worked/currently work for the Indianapolis Star, but since Gannet acquired them in 2000 I wouldn't line a hamster cage with that paper.
Reply
Read More
mehitscoolHamilton Nolan
8/05/14 12:53pm
There's an Employee Town Hall broadcast going on right now with Gannett higher ups detailing the changes going on. Lemme tell you, Cars.com is fucking profitable and they won't stop bringing it up.
Reply
Read More
fromedamsaughtoxHamilton Nolan
8/05/14 9:20am
I still don't get the undertone of glee and mockery in Hamilton's coverage of these continuing death knells for print. Revenue from print still is what finances most nitty gritty journalism. In Chicago, if it weren't for the Tribune, we'd have almost no idea what the corrupt city and county government officials were up to; we'd have no idea that the red-light ticket program has been issuing thousands of bogus tickets while the city happily collected the revenue without raising a peep. In smaller cities, only print really covers city government meetings. Hamilton sneers at print like it is Dad's AOL account, and he fancies himself working in the digital world of The Now, but much of the actual news Gawker aggregates and borrows is really originated by and paid for by print, which still is a main supporter of the AP. Hamilton fancies himself cutting edge versus those pathetic newspapers, but he works for a site that makes its money off Kardashian links and happily regurgitates an idiotic story about a guy taking pictures of the sky in the vicinity of lightning and declares he was hit by lightning. And Gawker leaves the story up even after many commenters point out just how idiotic it is and despite a laughable claim by Max that Gawker routinely updates and corrects its stories.

Hamilton is relentless in his criticism of the New York Times and other journalistic enterprises, but he works at a site that has high standards except for the many times it does not, and that is egregiously sloppy in matters of spelling, journalistic style, consistency, and fact-checking in comparison to the most parochial of print products.

Twenty years ago, when newspaper executives first started making cuts in response to incursions from the Internet, they were ruthlessly pilloried for shortsightedly "cutting their way to prosperity" and compromising the integrity of the newsroom. Then everyone realized how fast the ship was sinking. Today, the guys doing the spinoffs and holding together what is left of the print model are not idiots or delusionary; they are working out a transition while still tapping the revenues that some print operations still throw off in significant amounts. They know it will come to an end, but there is not good reason to kill the patient prematurely; it would be stupid to jettison that just for the sake of looking cool.
Reply