Hearst Corporation Wants Online Only News
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I previously mentioned that on Monday I lost my column at a local newspaper in California. Though this came as no surprise considering the state of the economy and how newspapers are struggling to survive, it appears that the Hearst Corporation may close another newspaper in Seattle and wants to go online only with their news. In a news article at the seattlepi.com, one reported has stated the following:
Staffers chosen to participate in an online-only version of the Seattle P-I were notified of their selection Wednesday and Thursday. The selections indicate The Hearst Corp.’s plan for such a Web site is advancing.Two reporters said they received “provisional offers” from P-I New Media head Michelle Nicolosi or Hearst executive Ken Riddick. They said they were told they will be given formal offers if the Web site gets the go-ahead from Hearst’s senior management.
The reporters wouldn’t give details, saying they had been asked during their interviews not to comment. Nicolosi also declined to comment. Riddick, who has been at the P-I over the past two days, didn’t return a call seeking comment.
The statement continues with:
According to Castro, Riddick said Hearst plans to start the site the day after the paper quits publishing, which Hearst has said will occur on a date not yet specified if no buyer has emerged by March 10.
It has been previously reported that Hearst also has plans on closing the San Francisco newspaper The Chronicle, which has been posting severe loses. The Chronicle could also suffer the same fate as the Seattle newspaper and go online only for their publications.
Magazines are also switching to online only publications as well. In the February 2009 issue of VARBusiness, they have announced there last printed copy.
Comments welcome.
2 Comments
Hearst Corporation Wants Online Only News - Lost Blog
March 7th, 2009
at 7:23am
[...] This article is featured on the custom Lost Blog at Auto-Blogs.us. [...]
mhz
March 9th, 2009
at 6:24pm
I don’t subscribe to newspaper, but read them periodically. Printed magazines sometimes. Books more often.
FOR MY LIFE I can’t see how anyone would want to replace those things with online content. Maybe its just generational. I guess if you grew up with books and mags then you feel attached…but what about the practical aspects?
Newspaper: you can read this at a table, while eating. You can even sit your plate on top of it if you’re short on room. You can twist it up when you’re done and start the fireplace with it.
Or take a whole stack of them to a friend who is moving, to wrap the breakables with.
Books and Magazines: Infinitely more convenient than online content. You can get one cheap, you can keep it forever (if inclined) and its small and durable. Yes durable.
You can throw a book or mag on the couch while you take off to the restroom or kitchen, or take it with you. You don’t have to check the battery level first.
If you come back to the couch and accidentally sit down on the book or mag, it doesnt matter. If it was your Kindle, or laptop, or any other future digital media, it would likely break, scratch, or kink the screen. There will never be digital media as convenient and durable as books and magazines. But someone will certainly spend billions of dollars trying.
You can throw it into the back seat of your car, and pull it out from under the seat a year later. Its still good. You don’t have to say, “oh crud. the battery on this model went obsolete already.”
If you’re a kid, you can rip out a cool picture and tape it up on your bedroom wall…or to your school notebook.
(do rich kids have laptops on their walls? or digital picture frames? Yikes.)
I find it so weird that so many people seem to think that if they can get a hand-held wireless device or laptop to carry around, that it can be a substitute for all these other media. Its not even close to the same quality/durability, and it costs more.
Sure there are some new benefits with many devices, mostly sharing content, and messaging other people. But those devices dont really fill the same bill as the printed media.
The only advantage I see to reading online is that you can copy/paste/store the content to build your own library of information. I usually end up printing the articles I want to read, so I can staple it and take it out to lunch with me to a fast food place and study it.
I could take my laptop, but then I might drop it…or the battery is low…or OOPS, have to go to the restroom…where will I put it? Or the ketchup squirts out when I’m tearing the packet….aaawwww…right in the keyboard buttons!
With an electronic gadget, you can get directions to the nearest good restaurant, or instantly find out that your friend is standing in line at the DMV, but you can’t sit down and READ or LEARN new things with the same level of comfort and convenience that you had with printed media. Not even close. Why does no one care about that?
Will it happen that upcoming generations will be so distracted by real-time info streams that they will never even TRY to actually sit and read? They probably won’t even be aware that there was once a time when you could take your reading to the beach. You could drop it on the towel when you were were in the water, and later you could shake the sand off and keep reading. In the sunlight. NO REALLY, YOU COULD SEE IT IN THE SUNLIGHT. No battery/sand/water issues. (Well water maybe, but its recoverable, without mailing it away for months to get fixed.)
Why does everyone seem willing to trade off one for the other? I think its a ridiculous compromise. After billions of dollars of research, they may eventually come up with a digital media that can be a suitable replacement.
I guarantee you, it will come in a format with multiple paper thin pages, folded and attached in the center, able to be rolled up and put in a pocket, or sat/stepped on without damage, and you STILL won’t be able to read it in sunlight.
Until then (and maybe after), I’ll be buying books and mags.