Do you read a local newspaper?

[keith]

I've been a newspaper reader since I was younger than nine; I've devoured them since I was nine.

Do you get a local newspaper or two? Daily or weekly? Free or paid?

What section(s) do you read?

What's your overall impression of the paper? What do they do well, what could they do better?

Regards,
Keith

[keith]

So much I'd like to say on this topic, but I'll start with this: Newspapers are a good buy. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee or a soda, you get news, entertainment, and ads and coupons that can more than pay for the paper.

Regards,
Keith

[pk]

I use to read a newspaper from front to back everyday. It just seemed to be the thing to do pre-internet days. After all how else are you going to get up to the minute news in your city (a few days later sometimes), if you did not read your newspaper?

Since the internet and finding out how quickly you can get the news sometimes minutes after it happens is awesome and I find I have put aside the 'daily' newspaper. But I have not given it up entirely. That would still leave out alot of avenues of great ideas, local happenings, commentaries, local news, and you would end up with out a full range of what is going on in your area.

When I was co-owner of a media site I actually would go on a website that showed the front page of hundreds of newspapers around the world. Talk about reading it all! lol I also used our own local newspapers for alot of great ideas, and thoughts to add to our site.

I can't say there is any one section I like the best but I guess I would say that the one section that I won't go pass is the local section without checking it out each time and of course the front page.

In the summer I would say alot of the time I go straight to the garage sale section! On Sundays even in the winter I always check out two places first. Ads for Estate Sales and check out houses for sale..(you never know when that dream home will be there waiiting) and all the next week's sale ads are always added on Sunday.

I always like to go over the comments from the people to the editor. Some really have good thoughts and well worth checking out. I use to love the 'dear Abby section when I was younger but now it seems as life goes on you find you have more than your own share of problems than to read stranger's issues too! lol lol

Finally the next to the last section I take the time for is the comics, I love 'born loser' and maraduke. And finally the section that I toss aside almost all the time is the 'sports pages! lol oh I just had a bunch of people think...'what'? sorry.

Well that's if for now. Bet you didn't think your questions warranted such a long comment. lol Scarey part is that I'm sure I can think of more soon...

pk

[pk]

Do you get a local newspaper or two? Daily or weekly? Free or paid?

We use to pay for it to be delivered but now one of us picks it up. Most of the time I will buy it when the headlines are interesting.

We do get a free local paper each week and I do check that out. But the only thing I notice about that one is the poor qualitiy of the paper and ink so by the time you finish you have to wash your hands.

Many times we will also pick up the happenings paper that is free when we are walking out of the grocery store.

pk

[pk]

:lol: :lol: I'm sorry...but I have to come back to this one more time...(told you I would have more to say...)

I think this is really a great topic when you sit and think about it or it's just that it brings back many memories when I was a child.

The newspaper was always like that 'special' time of the day sorta like when the 'mail's here'! Every day when I was young I would see my mom reading the newspaper and drinking her coffee. I can still picture her years back in her house dress and apron with her coffee mug doing the cross word puzzle. That puzzle was so important to her to do every day. And she could do them all! (not me!)

All through her life she read the newspaper every day until she became to ill to do so. She use to tell me when she was much older that she still did the puzzle to keep her brain active and sharp! I wish I kept some of her cross word puzzles through out the years since that was just so my 'mom'.

Thanks for the memories. The newspaper should always be an important part of kids lives even though the internet has so much at their fingertips, they all need to learn the importance of the daily news too.

ok, I'm done for now! lol

pk

[keith]

The web sucks so much time, but I've got the old newspaper habit too.

Haven't missed Prince Valiant or the Sunday real estate section more than a handful of times for over 40 years, except 3 years in the service.

Loved the Green Sheet when I was a kid - the comics and 'Ask Andy'.

Peruse the business section daily and the Sunday paper, incl.:

Real Estate
Op-Ed
Funnies
Lifestyle
Magazine
Business
and sometimes other parts, plus the ad inserts for building and computers

Regards,
Keith

[j10asen]

Newspapers
While growing up my parents got the dailey newspaper . My mom always did the cross word puzzle . Back then Menasha was my home town. My parents had 4 choices of newspapers; the Milwaukee Journal, The Milwaukee Sentinel ,The Appleton Post-Crescent and the Oshkosh dailey Northwestern.
I was told that the Milwaukee papers did not cover Menasha although I thought the green sheet was cool when I did see it. The Appleton Post-Cresent was a Republican newpaper so that left us with The Oshkosh Northwestern. They never did a Sunday newspaper, so it was the Milwaukee Journal on Sundays
My dad always read prince valiant.
Today they read the Post-crescent, my dad reads every word and mom does the crossword puzzle.
We used to get the dailey but in an effort to keep costs down reduced it to weekend only.
I basically glance at it and if something grabs me, I will read it. I look at the ads for tools, computer stuff and office supply stuff. I also read the job opportunities and every now and then will send my resume’ in but I know from reading on the web that newspaper job ads rarely get interviews.
I think newspapers are a thing of the past. My Idea of a newpaper is a smoke filled office with typewriters clacking away and phone ringing off the hooks.
Those days are long gone. I have a daughter in the business and I have told her how I feel but you know how dumb parents can be!!!
That’s my call on the dailey scandal sheet.
Besides when you have http://www.theBubbler.com who needs anything else?

[keith]

Thanks pk and j10asen. I appreciate your thoughts, and your sense of humor!

The press, the "Fourth Estate" has such a great capacity (tremendous resources, talent and distribution) to do good, yet they don't live up to it enough in my view.

I read (and was a carrier for) the Milwaukee Sentinel (daily), and the Milwaukee Journal (daily and Sunday) since I was a kid. The pension scandal in Milwaukee was discovered by an independent internet writer, and not by the (now) Journal Sentinel. Still, they have a history of doing some good work. They also have a history of missing the boat completely, like the pension scandal, and burying some items long ago like child abuse by the clergy. The Journal is one of the top 50 media companies in the world (TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, etc.), and they have a far greater power to do good if they put their minds to it.

Will bloggers be the "Fifth Column", doing what the press won't do? I hope so.

I don't think newspapers are done yet. It will be interesting to see the newspapers of even a few years from now.

Regards,
Keith

[rudedog]

Interesting topic.

since I recently became a owner of a online news service everyones opinions is appreciated on this topic.

Even though i don't subscribe to a newspaper its more out of rebellion then anything. i stopped subscribing way before i got involved in the business. however the neighbor does hand me a copy of the Sunday paper when he's done with it. the comics are my favorite, of course.

I would be very surprised if electronic news services were ever so popular that they could be considered a daily part of normal American lives. they do appeal to certain groups of people, and have their time and place. the same as bloggers do. there are many very good bloggers out there, but there are still way to many people who don't trust the internet, and who are uncomfortable sitting behind a screen for hours reading news. Its very much a part of American culture to sit back and read a paper. do a crossword puzzle, or fold it up on a sat morning and go rummaging. the best we can do at this point is appeal to those who do use the web regularly.

one of the reasons i believe we will always take a second seat to the papers is because of advertising revenue. the newspapers rake it in, at the moment i would be happy if it trickled in. heck i would be happy with stumbling in stone cold drunk. hard to grow with no budget.
it's very hard to build a trust up with advertisers when it comes to the web. ill get there though. where there's a will there's a way.

Another reason is the lack of local writers, have you ever noticed that the majority of news articles on the net were gleamed from other printed newspapers, or from press releases that were fed to the service through rss feeds. the online news services rely on the major newspapers to keep things interesting. content is king, and we can not get enough. I will get there though, where there is a will there's a way.

lol, actually at the moment i would just be happy if the server came back up. thats why i have time to be here. server crashed this morning. bummer, no news, is not good news, for rudedog.

i think the really big reason we'll never become a real threat to the established newspapers is that we have a really hard time establishing our selves as anymore then a hobby. people don't see us as legit unless were in print. i cant count how many times my business has been called a hobby by others. unless im making millions, and have a sign that says "IBM" or "Microsoft" hanging over my head its just hard for people to except what we do. many just call us community bloggers. im finding out credibility is everything in this buisness.

Kieth, Ever try to tell someone what you do, as they get that blank stare on their face. they haven't a clue what your about. i get it all the time.
even my in-laws who are programmers consider my sites as hobby's.
bummer huh.

[pk]

Another reason is the lack of local writers, have you ever noticed that the majority of news articles on the net were gleamed from other printed newspapers, or from press releases that were fed to the service through rss feeds. the online news services rely on the major newspapers to keep things interesting. content is king, and we can not get enough. I will get there though, where there is a will there's a way.

I know exactly how you feel Rude since being in the same place as you not so long ago. It takes alot for people to trust and it's even harder if there is any adversity going on the site or did happen that advertisers can pick up on. They smell trouble and they are gone and unfortunately on a website with forums etc..you can't always 'control' the theme of things at times. All it takes is someone saying something really nasty or people starting up bickering on the forum for a business to want to pull their ad. Newspapers always have more control in what they print and what goes on.

Of course you can always pull off what is put on by a member or an unwanted source that puts something on...but I remember many times an unknown put x-rated stuff on the forum and it sat for a few hours before one of us caught it. Not good for business. And businesses know this can happen. When they are asked to put money down on an ad they want to know how 'safe' their name is going to be. What they put their ad on has to be 100 percent up to their standards. 24/7 Internet can't always guarantee that.

As far as a lack of writers. That is a tough one also. I have personal experience with that. We know how I or someone would write a story and if someone didn't agree, it was like the Vultures would descend upon the poor writer and pick the story apart. Or you put trust into a site only to have your name cleared off your writings and feel as if your stories were stolen away....No one likes to take that extra step it takes to put out a story only to have it put under a microscope. Or once it is on others can change things. It's different when you are just putting comments in a forum compared to taking the time to actually research and write a story.
In print at least there is again more control as to what is printed. Slanderous comments simply never appear. Newspapers can wipe away the crazy things some people like to say at times.

But I know you rude..and if anyone can turn the tide of things..you can. Just keep going the way you have been and things will be great for you someday.

OK, that's my two cents worth for the day! lol
pk

[CarolsCritterCare]

Originally Posted by keith

Do you get a local newspaper or two? Daily or weekly? Free or paid?

Regards,
Keith

I read the paper on line.....hhhhmmmm what is it called if I am reading it on line ~ it's not paper....
I also drive around once a month and pick up old newspapers and plastic bags for the animals rescue. Great bedding, & tray liners, and I use the plastic bags for soiled papers and also as "plastic gloves" to get in there and clean out that ferret cage....blah......
I'm always looking for stacks of newspaper. Someone always donates their old Agi papers and I enjoy reading thru those become they become a potty box!
Carol

[rudedog]

lol, thanks patty. i know you have like ,soooooo been there.
at the moment i might not have to worry about it much longer, server is still down. movie at 11

[keith]

Thanks for the comments. Just caught up on reading this thread and I'll be back to reply at length. For the moment I'll catch some zzzzzzzz's...it is 2:22 a.m. and I'd like to be fresh to come back to your great comments.

Regards,
Keith

[keith]

Thanks for the comments. It is fascinating how the thread about newspapers became a newspaper vs. online comparison, as I had hoped.

RudeDog posted: "I would be very surprised if electronic news services were ever so popular that they could be considered a daily part of normal American lives."

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Multimedia Lab at MIT and author of Being Digital, suggests that in the not too distant future we'll have electronic newspapers and books. A soft, pliable electronic parchment that shows print via millions of tiny ping-pong like balls that are black on one side and white on the other. These will arrange themselves to form text and graphics (later, they'll be hex-cubes for color) because of wireless electronic impulses they get. So I do believe a morph of the newspaper and the web is in our future.

RD continued: "one of the reasons i believe we will always take a second seat to the papers is because of advertising revenue. the newspapers rake it in, at the moment i would be happy if it trickled in. heck i would be happy with stumbling in stone cold drunk. hard to grow with no budget. "

I couldn't agree with you more! Though hopefully not always. One day the ad agencies may wake up (or be uprooted by competition) to the awesome media buys represented by sites like www.DailyKenoshan.com and theBubbler.com.

We're fortunate to have a strong client base and we run ads on theBubbler as part of our service for them ~ and many get surprisingly strong results! Nevertheless, theBubbler costs us a good $40k a year in real costs (let alone the opportunity costs). I still believe when agencies and advertisers really get wind of the values inherent in a site like this, that will change.

RD continues: "i think the really big reason we'll never become a real threat to the established newspapers is that we have a really hard time establishing our selves as anymore then a hobby. people don't see us as legit unless were in print. i cant count how many times my business has been called a hobby by others."

True. I keep harping on the fact that theBubbler.com is the number one ranked online guide and directory for Wisconsin, yet the money keeps flowing to the newspaper peoples' sites. This site started as a hobby (a passion, really, as it continues to be) and as a way to show people what we (the staff at www.OnYourMark.com) can do on the web. The passion continues. The results we generate for clients are strong. Our traffic ranking is the best in Wisconsin. I simply believe we have to persevere. "Do what you love and the money will come" is what they say.

I appreciate the comments from j10asen and pk, too.

Regards,
Keith

[rudedog]

Thanks Kieth, been waiting for a reply.

It is fascinating how the thread about newspapers became a newspaper vs. online comparison, as I had hoped.

thats good, at least i wasn't off subject.
I was carefully to exclude the link to the site, so that the post didn't look like a spam attempt, thanks for adding it to your's.

the topic of course naturally had to migrate in that direction since you have many webmasters and cms'ers who visit this site. along with the fact that your an electronic publisher.

Im in the middle of doing major revamping to the site in order to make it more marketable, this topic allowed me to express a few things i had on my mind at the moment. thanks.


Im looking forward to reading more thoughts on this topic.

[CarolsCritterCare]

I read the online version of the "newspaper" a lot more then picking up a paper and looking at it.

Plus the online version is free.....

Carol

[pk]

It's been awhile since this post been brought up. I remember this thread as being very interesting. So, do you read a local newspaper?

[Kens Digital Media]

I get the local paper delivered Monday - Saturday. I like to read about the news that happens around my area, then comes the Yard Sale listings for the weekend

[pk]

Glad to see you responded to this 'older' thread. I noticed it last night when skimming through some and remembered how I thought it was an important topic with the news reporting so much on how newspapers are having such a harder time now. So many get all their 'news' from the web now, or listen to it on the radio, or watch on t.v. that it seems no one cares to read the paper, or worse simply are to 'busy'.

There is just something good about seeing things in actual print at times. I still enjoy reading the paper even tho I do get the majority of the news from the web, it's still interesting to read my local paper. I have to admit that I don't get it everyday, but I do pick it up as often as I can. And yes, for the garage/rummage sales in the summer! lol Oh and you can't forget the after Thanksgiving sales, coupons, and comic pages too. lol

[CindyLouWho]

We get the local Shopping News paper that is delivered to everyone for free on Tuesdays. It is the type of paper that has for sale listings, rummage sales, real estate listings and notices of upcoming events. The only newspaper that has news articles we subscribe to is the Richland Observer which comes once a week in the mail. We also used to get the Grant County newspaper but since the same company owns most of the surrounding newspapers now they pretty much put the same news in all of their papers so we dropped that one. Besides, we hear the news quicker on the local "gossip" site...oops, I mean website. LOL

[dgridley]

I'd like to subscribe to my local paper but at only 4-8 pages and little actual local news, it's really not a good value.. not to mention that the few times I've tried subscribing in the past, delivery has not been very reliable.. sometimes 3 out of the 7 days we wouldn't get a paper.

[j10asen]

Originally Posted by keith

I don't think newspapers are done yet. It will be interesting to see the newspapers of even a few years from now.

Regards,
Keith

So fastForward 2 years.... what do you think now Keith?

I know our Appleton paper has drastically cut-back on staff and content. They have even forced unPaind furloughs on employees in an effort to stay alive. That must be going on across the board. As prices increase on everything from ink to paper to the utilities required to produce a newspaper and yet all it's customers are living on less income.

I can not help but think the only way to turn a resession around is to get people employed.
There are a whole lot of them out struggling right now.

[dgridley]

The problem with my local paper is the lack of decent local coverage. The paper from the next down over covers our local news better than we do.

[Kens Digital Media]

That's the problem, if they printed more "Local" news then more people would read the paper.

The front page of a local newspaper has news on other cities or countries but should have breaking local news.

I read the news online about global events, why buy a local paper to read the same thing right?

[Twoaday]

I read the jsonline.com, and the Sheppard Express (actually the paper form). Plus of course I read my own hyper-local paper UrbanMilwaukee.com... sorry had to drop the plug!