Monday, June 9, 2008

“It’s a strategy, basically, of gradually closing down"

The New York Times has an article about the changes at Tribune Co., that might be most notable for how adeptly the they're able to cover the implosion of the newspaper industry without actually putting themselves in too. It takes a fair amount of gymnastics, but the result is a story about newspapers in a newspaper that never actually acknowledges that that it too is in trouble. What other industry would present information that way? None I can think of.

Anyway, what's going to be cut? How about an order of the usual?

Mr. Zell and Mr. Michaels did not address what content would be cut, but Mr. Zell has said before that he disagrees with the heavy allocation of resources to national and international news. Many newspapers have concluded that when a mouse click can collect news of Washington or Baghdad or Beijing from a multitude of sources, local news is their only real hold on readers.

Yes, you read that right: Bring the old "hyperlocal" dog back onto the track for one last race. I'm sure it's still a good idea, right? Oh wait...

P.S. Sorry for the absence, I've been transitioning from one thing to the next. I expect regularly-scheduled updates to continue from here on out.

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