Tony: The Cold Realization That "The Paper" Is Dead

This cold, nasty week in Kansas City brought to light an unfortunate fact that spells doom for the newspaper industry.

Here are a few events that will change the face of reporting in Kansas City forever.

The blizzard delayed newspaper delivery for the first time in a long time and complaints didn’t even register a blip in other media.

KCC was the first to report that The Star fired people and cut jobs in secret.

The subscription model on the Ipad promoted by Rupert Murdoch’s "The Daily" was the only ray of hope for print media organizations who have all but abandoned hope for newsprint as a viable means of delivering news. Now let’s examine why all of these thing spell doom for newspaper organizations.

Not so long ago TV news stations once carried complaints about newspaper service and phone numbers to call in order to solve delivery problems. No more. There was a myth that once made newspaper people happy: It was that TV news fed from and got all their ideas from the papers and even read nothing but news stories aloud on broadcasts with the help of some graphics or art.

Those days are long gone and now TV news stands alone at the top of the local news gathering pyramid. This weeek TV reporter Russ Ptacek and his reporting helped overturn a ruling concerning a sick worker at The Bannister Fed Complex and earned the poor guy around 150k. Meanwhile, the KC’s biggest daily newspaper has been scooped time and again by Ptacek and on this story, and their coverage simply can’t compare to what this earnest reporter has been able to accomplish.

The secret job cuts are just a symptom of the terminal state of newsprint. Sad that newspapers betray all of their principles regarding transparency when it comes to their own financial fortunes as they are caught up in the same kind of corporate cheerleeding as the ship goes down that newspaper people used to decry from other institutions.

Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel for newspaper organizations is probably just an oncoming train.

Rupert Murdoch thinks people are going to pay for iPad content when a simple copy and past function on a mouse makes that proposition foolhardy at best. Even worse, so many Internet pyramid schemes merely represent a great deal for advertisers and forget the reader in all of their pipe dreams.

While development for tablets is just a tiny segment of the web overall, it just represents another bubble that won’t save corporate profits from the simple principal of the digital revolution. Now that information is in 1s and 0s we find ourselves in a world where EVERYTHING can be copied, edited and distributed with no generation loss and no consequences for the most part.

This new paradigm makes armies of trucks delivering two day-old headlines obsolete and is working toward ending the idea that anyone can really own an idea.

http://www.mb-kc.com/
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4 Responses to Tony: The Cold Realization That "The Paper" Is Dead

  1. dvs says:

    and what’s going to replace them? The lies you push? Not bloody likely.

    Here’s a sad fact: there are still plenty of advertisers in this town who have money to spend, and lo and behold! The Star knows how to reach them.

    Also, TV news is horrible in this town. It’s really fucking bad. Their websites are worse. Which is why The Star – by ANY measure – has the busiest website in town.

    Your buzzwords aren’t going to be able to mask your disappointment about The Star being in business ten, twenty years from now in some form. And probably still in print.

    Bannister Fed. . .. big fucking deal. Nobody else reports it because NOBODY FUCKING CARES.

  2. nom nom says:

    I’m sorry The Star didn’t hire you Tony. I know it must gall you to see people like Jenee bring home a paycheck for what she does versus whatever the fuck it is you do.

    But don’t let it eat you alive any more than it already has. Which, clearly, is a lot.

  3. harley says:

    Why you and hearne continue to bash the star…
    The truth is that the star is going to do fine. Now that president obama has saved the
    nation from a deep deep devasting recession/depression the paper appears to be
    picking up steam and advertisers. They make money…lots of it….but their accounts
    get raided by the owners to pay the debt on all the other papers they bought.
    Without the star….hearne is nothing. Lets be honest…the star gave him hundreds of
    thousands of readers for his column. The star “made” this guy. He’d be nothing without
    the star and their reach. Still on sundays 400,000 papers are out there…and people still like
    to read the paper despite all yours and hearnes lies.
    Hearne now operates from a small non essential website with about 3000 unique
    visitors a month. Hardly the millions he reached with the star. Most importantly noone cares
    about hearne anymore. He never gets a hot story….he’s never writing anything
    that isn’t already known…and he has no following except for the 10 or 15 people who
    regularly read this site.
    He’s not got the audience or the pull to get the stories he used to. There’s never any
    “news”….just hall with old qoutes and some funny come backs and glazer who fires up the
    readership by “using” hearne to fight old grudges and attempt to be a writer.
    So hearne continues to bash the media that “made” him….and now he’s resigned to being
    a nothing in this small hick town.
    Tony….you need some anti depressants. I don’t have to say anything more.
    So hearne….have fun writing worthless columns. It usually gets about 4 or 5 comments
    at best becaue those are so lame. To the 20 readers you write for…there’s something
    there…but nothing really for you to do now that you’re just another one of 10,000 bloggers
    in this little city.
    Other commentators said you were a “has been”….i don’t agree but they are right in one
    sense. without the star you carry no weight. Noone cares anymore.
    If not for glazer this site would go bye bye. Maybe glazer should start his own site.
    At least without you we wouldn’t have to suffer from your constant nagging and
    whining.
    Hearne…..we know why you hate the star. Because they took away your megaphone…
    your outlet for being somebody. Now noone cares….just like the newspaper you
    constnatly hate…..”you’re on your last hurrah”….you are….the star is not.

  4. fafner7 says:

    Tony: The Cold Realization That “The Paper” Is Dead
    A 30+ yr subscriber to the KC Star – I recently discontinued my sub.

    took a little getting used to – buy I’ll never subscribe to a paper again – I was mostly leafing thru content I wasn’t interested in – WAY easier just scrolling thru websites –

    and you can always print an article or two – for reading when “taking care of business’

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