(no subject)

[winterthunder]

My dad came home with the news today that the News and Observer is going into their third round of layoffs and consolidating to two daily sections. They also stopped paying into their pension plan. He now thinks they'll be among the majority of mid-sized papers that won't survive the recession.

Raleigh without the News and Observer... it's a sobering thought.

Comments

[wild-stars.livejournal.com]

*pout* I'll be really sad.
what will we have instead? Will we have to read the NYT or something? I don't understand how there can be no local paper. I'm glad my family is still supporting them, we get the paper every day.

[winterthunder.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I suppose the N&O would combine with the Charlotte Observer first, but they're both owned by McClatchy and it's the parent company that's going under. The N&O was actually making money before this. I suppose it might survive if someone buys it after McClatchy dies, but who has the money to do that?

[wild-stars.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much it would cost.

[winterthunder.livejournal.com]

Just over a million, maybe? The problem would come in building it back up and changing the model to make it a viable business in the age of the internet. It currently runs on advertising income, and that's gone down significantly.

I wonder if you could morph it somehow. Maybe add a blogging component, so some of your material could come from the readers? And make your reporters blog daily on what they're doing, to make things more open. You'd pull your national and international news from the wires and put all your focus into local. You need to find a way to expand and define your local audience, so as to lure the advertisers back.