📡 Tuscaloosa News/Tide Sports with some organizational changes

[planomateo]

Just caught this (a few days late). Bummer.

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Newsprint..... life toward the end

 

[planomateo]

It's kind of sad this is how business operates these days. I've watched it become an everyday tool for businesses, it's become so common these days.

 

[Secondand26]

I have really enjoyed the podcasts they've done with Cecil. Good listening on the road during the offseason. Especially the ones about all of the coaches between Coach Bryant & Coach Saban. I hope whoever takes over will continue them.

 

[TerryP]

Newsprint..... life toward the end

On that note, I saw an article in the last few days about a paper who is canceling all printed editions for subscribers and giving them a free iPad so they can see the digital version every morning.

 

[50+yeartidefan]

On that note, I saw an article in the last few days about a paper who is canceling all printed editions for subscribers and giving them a free iPad so they can see the digital version every morning.

Yeah. Our local paper went to 3 days from 5. But u got access to website with no cost.
We don't seem to miss anything.

 

[TerryP]

@50+yeartidefan, are they part of a media group? As in corporation or conglomeration of several city's and their newspapers?

 

[50+yeartidefan]

@50+yeartidefan, are they part of a media group? As in corporation or conglomeration of several city's and their newspapers?

Yeah. I think its like a 2-3 newspaper group....north Carolina....here...somewhere else....pretty much local news....who’s arrested..going to jail...etc....
We read to make we arent in obituary...and kids aren’t in arrest reports..
After that its gravy.

 

[planomateo]

Off topic, did you guys know that most car dealerships are owned by large corporations/conglomerations? Some really massive ones, Auto Nation, Penske (Roger), Lithia probably own 1200-1500 dealerships between the 3 of them.

 

[BamaFan334]

Off topic, did you guys know that most car dealerships are owned by large corporations/conglomerations? Some really massive ones, Auto Nation, Penske (Roger), Lithia probably own 1200-1500 dealerships between the 3 of them.

Asbury Group here in Georgia is a big one that owns a lot of luxory lots.

 

[JoshB]

Yep, it's a dying platform (in a sense). I mean as long as you have an online presence and are committed to building that presence local, especially, papers can still thrive. You have to make sure you are catering to that local audience, though. And parents and older people still want that physical paper in their hands. They want to be able to scrapbook their grandkids (or kids) successes in sports or academics or whatever. I see local papers all the time covering national news and that is just a recipe for disaster. No one is going to your local small town Alabama newspaper for news they get from Yahoo, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN or 100 other national outlets. Problem there is many of these small papers have been bought out by bigger branch companies and then those companies get bought out by MASSIVE companies. You begin to lose that connection with the local community, prices go up, employees are treated like dirt and then these companies wonder why their business sucks. A paper I used to work for is run by whatever the company BH Media sold out to and they used to have a "Top News" feature on their website that would scroll across the top of any article you were reading and it also had whatever the top local or state news was. Now, its national news and people hate it.

I've worked in all three areas. I've worked for a paper owned by BH Media, I've worked for one that is owned by a much smaller company (Boone Newspapers Inc.) and I currently work for a family owned paper that runs two papers and thats it. They are all feeling the brunt of print media dying but I guess there are levels to it. The smaller papers are able to kind of figure out works and just build on it, while these big companies want to try and do a band-aid fix for every single area that just never works.

I ranted, I'm sorry.

 

[TerryP]

Yeah. I think its like a 2-3 newspaper group....north Carolina....here...somewhere else....pretty much local news....who’s arrested..going to jail...etc....
We read to make we arent in obituary...and kids aren’t in arrest reports..
After that its gravy.

The reason I asked has to do with what I see as the future for papers if they're going to last longer—as long as it's feasible, ya know? The ones I see having success are your small town publications. Locally owned and still community oriented. Gone are the days when a single paper covers Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Alpharetta, Rosewell, Marietta, and Dunwoody.

Today, it's about papers like The Trussville Times. Or, one I'm intimately familiar with which runs in this fashion...

Charleston's paper is the Post and Courier. However, while that paper is being printed there's one for Berkeley County, The Berkeley Independent that's in the production line as well. That's not to mention...let's see here...Gazette, Moultrie News, Aiken Standard, The News, The Star, free fimes...damn forgetting one. Now, alongside that you've got Evening Post Interactive community outreach is its foundation.

I won't start on the other publications ... or the other ventures that family owned paper has birthed.

 

[TerryP]

@BamaBoyJosh, ⬆

 

[JoshB]

The thing I notice - and honestly is a bit concerning to me - is your non traditional media that is popping up more and more. We have a couple here that have decided to pop up. Both do a lot of video, which is more and more becoming a necessity, and one also does "articles" (unbelievably poorly written, certainly not AP/newspaper style, poor grammar, poor spelling, etc.). Being poorly written is one thing but the other thing is these "outlets" don't have the same ethical requirements, they don't have the Associated Press or Alabama Press Association to answer to when they do something unethical (and it happens a lot). Attacking people personally, making accusations that have zero proof, etc. These are things that these "outlets" are able to get away with and its that drama that brings them their views, clicks, etc. which pays the bills.

I still believe there are enough people in each community that want to know honestly what's going on with the county commission or the board of education or the city council or what state reps are saying in our communities along with all of the local sports people want to keep up with that the local papers will always have a place (its just that place is going to lie more and more online than anything).

Another thing that really blows my mind is the papers that have absolutely no online presence still. I don't see those lasting much longer at all, especially if someone - even if its one of these non-traditional outlets - else comes into the area.

 

[TerryP]

Being poorly written is one thing but the other thing is these "outlets" don't have the same ethical requirements, they don't have the Associated Press or Alabama Press Association to answer to when they do something unethical (and it happens a lot). Attacking people personally, making accusations that have zero proof, etc.

That simply can't be painted with such a broad brush, Josh. These outlets don't have the same ethical requirements as whom? We're in the midst of seeing the largest news organizations do the same thing, "attacking people personally" and "making accusations that have zero proof."

Technological advances certainly are a driving factor in moving from print to digital. For some, it's much easier to read from a device versus the daily print and that's not exclusive to news productions.

On a slightly different note, I was reading over some research at work last night tracking trends in the media that, coincidentally, fall along the same timelines as the decline in subscriptions, et. al. It tracked spikes from major media sources in terminology used in articles; political correctness, social justice, diversity training, and a few others. Call it coincidence if you will, but the spikes occurred dramatically under the last presidential regime. (In other words, the spikes predated the Trump for President run.) A question was posed, "Is the trend the result of media implosion? Or did media implode because it indiscriminately aped the fads that were spawning in the Universities in the 90s and lost all credibility?." As one who studies trends in print and digital publications the results of one can't be viewed without taking the other into consideration.

Personally, I hold the opinion that this started in the '90's and was a result of what was being taught in journalism schools. I can attest to that personally through my time spent in RP. There were a few professors with whom I didn't agree with their teaching styles. They were blatantly encouraging students in school for journalism to create news, create agendas, and shape cultural thought instead of reporting the news.

(FWIW, the research was done using the LexisNexis database and I'm assuming you understand how tricky that can be with key words, the use of quotations, etc. Which, inevitably, leads to confirmation bias quite a lot.)