Before I put forward my own thoughts, I thought it would be interesting to see what people had to say about this from a local newspaper's point of view.
Brian Greenberg comments on Jeff's blog:
Right tool for the job, folks. The past mission of the newspaper is not the future mission. News reporting wants to be immediate and online, and so it shall be. Investigative reporting, well-researched background pieces or profiles, long-term analyses - these can be online as well, but they can also be in print (newsprint, magazines, even books).That's one thought, but what role - if any - do you see papers like the Leicester Mercury playing in the future?
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PS Brian Greenberg also has a great 'favourite quote' on his profile: “In theory, practice and theory are basically the same. In practice, they are not.”
I read your most recent blog post in bed this morning on my iPod. I check my RSS reader before I make my first cup of coffee, I've been using the net for over twenty years. But I'm a freak. In my experience people of my generation (forties) don't know what an RSS feed is, they've seen photos of eReaders but they wouldn't dream of buying one, they wouldn't recognise an iPod touch (my brother didn't this weekend). The future for newspapers is online, but don't make the mistake of assuming that those of us who have been using twitter since shortly after it went online represent most of your readers. Or that middle-aged early adopters have a good grasp of what people in their twenties want out of online information sources.
ReplyDeleteMy mother wanted to sell a desk this Christmas - I twisted her arm into advertising on the local newspaper website (not the LM), she got a free insertion in the print edition. Guess where the buyer saw the advertisement? Plenty of people buy local papers for the advertisements (jobs, cars, houses, small ads) and don't care too much about the news.