Comments on: Crying uncle in the news business

By: Greg0658

Greg0658 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:10:11 +0000

Heres another vision for you. Run to the Patent Office.

The next Old Glory succession – replace the Stars in the Field of Blue with:

The World Trade Org logo.

For those who don’t know the icon. It looks like the AT&T globe with RGB latitude lines. RGB (red, green, blue ) the primary colors of electronic media.

By: Greg0658

Greg0658 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:49:05 +0000

I’ve been envisioning a YouTube video. Rather than actually create it
(for now)(cause why, I won’t get paid for the effort)
I’ll post the script here, maybe I’ll see a great version from one of you.

background: Monopoly boardgame, a vertical picture of Wall Street, folded at 90degree

items: 3 shells (you know the peas & shell game)
a pea in each shell
a standup pic of a farm plantation
a standup pic of a chemical plant
the standard houses and hotels

visual script:
s1> a hand reaches in rotating the 3 shells quickly, 1 shell pulls to Wall Street background, lifting the remaining front shells, one is empty, one has a pea, the WS shell has 5 peas (ya I meant FIVE) when revealed

s2> this goes on a couple times and a Wall Street hand with Rolex watch and diamond ring drags the hotels, farm and chemical plant into their corner

s3> a hammer smashes a house

narration script: in development

By: Howard Weaver

Howard Weaver — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 00:04:43 +0000

Unless I am mistaken (and I’m not), it costs more to produce and circulate printed copies than newspaper companies receive in subscription fees.

Yes, that’s right: modern newspaper economics have ALWAYS relied on advertisers, not on people “paying for content.” It’s nice that we were able to recoup some costs of production through subscriptions, but that was a sideshow, basically a zero-sum game. And as production/distribution costs fall in the digital world, any argument about charing for content based on historical analysis becomes even less tenable.

By: Robert Feinman

Robert Feinman — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:25:15 +0000

Perhaps if the newspapers are looked at as an industrial enterprise what is happening can be put into context. All industries that make “stuff” are in trouble in the US. That’s why all the pundits keep promoting the service economy.

If you look at other traditional industries from Coca Cola to GM you will see that they are in disfavor with Wall Street (isn’t that what all the hand wringing is really about?). They all have limited growth potential or even growth slower than population (that is a form of decline). The sectors that are doing well are those that deal in intangibles like banks, hedge funds and other intermediaries.

If the issues of raw materials and waste byproducts from manufacturing get serious enough the entire capitalist model may have to be rethought. I think I once heard a quip that the NY Times was really in the forest products business. The words on the page were just a way to sell their paper products.

By: Duffer

Duffer — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:37:31 +0000

Just a reminder that newspapers already enjoy a government subsidy in the form of lower postage costs. Of course, this is only important to the smallest of the small.

But the NNA lobbies hard to make sure these subsidies stay in place.

By: Josh Dodd

Josh Dodd — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:34:41 +0000

Wow, I’m amazed that you think the BBC license fee is unjournalist. In my opinion the BBC creates some of the best journalism anywhere. Radio 4 and the World Service are better news sources than any newspaper I can think of.
It’s ridiculous of Rattner to see a license fee as the only option (along with the mana), but to reject it our of hand is similarly ridiculous.