Industry leaders much smarter than I are predicting the end of “paper” in newspapers within ten years. Many media companies are already heading in that direction with advances in online offerings on many fronts and in multiple formats. News agencies are now media agencies and, before long, that long-favored descriptor for old-school journalists – “He has ink flowing in his veins” – will fade from our vocabulary just as we no longer fill up with “high-test.”
In the meantime, here at Today Newspapers we really can’t say what the future holds other than this industry is faced with all sorts of challenges from all different sides but still facing a common dilemma – delivering community news you want.
In what manner we deliver that news remains to be seen but one thing is for sure – smaller outlets such as ours cannot afford to deliver the news in formats that will keep pleasing everyone.
With new technology comes a price, as does keeping up with rising fuel charges, rising postal charges, rising ink and newsprint prices and ever-increasing environmental impact. At some point we just won’t be able to print a newspaper each and every week for every traditional subscriber with a voracious appetite for news in that old, familiar form.
At the same time we need to know what local issues we face as a still-vivacious community; we want to know what all those sirens were about over the weekend; we want to know how the team did last Friday night; we want to know who just got married and who has passed away; we want to know what we have to fear and what we have to feel good about.
Community newspapers are just that – community. They can bring us together on one page and polarize us on the next.
As our communities advance technologically, we as a media outlet will be able to deliver community news in a faster, more concise manner, in many forms and updated often. We will deliver news to your office or workstation, we will deliver news to your portable electronic device, we will deliver news to your vehicle and we will still deliver news to your home.
During the month of July we will be printing pages devoted to technology in our print editions as well as placing that and more information on our website.
Feel free to contact us with any questions, concerns, comments or criticisms about our past, present or future here at Today Newspapers, your community newspaper.
June 10, 2008
What’s all this then?
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What is wrong with the Today Newspapers? There are always typos in the articles, the ads are always “grouped” together making them hard to read and not appealing.
Also, this website is poor quality. Honestly, I have stopped purchasing the paper because I find more information and better articles in Best Southwest Neighbors. That publication is easier to read and has more relevant information to the BSW (not to mention a lot more photos, better coverage, also an awesome website).
Hopefully Today will make some changes to keep us BSW residents interested.
Comment by BEN RICHARD — March 4, 2009 @ 2:50 am |
I’ll add a few responses, sir.
Do we have a few typos, here and there, with a relatively thin editorial staff? Yes. Always typos in articles? No.
Ads “grouped together”? We have a standard one-quarter inch space between ads. STANDARD, as in, that’s what other newspapers do.
“Neighbors”? When’s the last time you read about a city council or school board meeting there? Never.
When’s the last time you read other “hard news” there? Never.
When’s the last time you read about how your local councilmember or school boardmember voted on a split issue there? Never.
Better photos? Bitmapped, underexposed? Not even close, sir.
And, if you’re a local shopper, when’s the last time you saw more than one or two local ads in Neighbors? Never.
Sir, hopefully YOU will look at Today vs. Neighbors with more open eyes.
Sounds to me like a case of selective perception.
Comment by cedarhilleditor — April 2, 2009 @ 11:36 pm |
Oh, and one or two other things to add.
Since Neighbors is free, has almost no local ads in the BSW edition, even with it being almost nothing but submitted stories, it likely is a loss leader in the BSW. Given that Belo just gave employees (the remaining ones) a salary haircut, who knows how much longer it will stay around, at least without being merged with another area’s Neighbors edition, or taken web-only or something.
Comment by cedarhilleditor — April 2, 2009 @ 11:39 pm |