You have the top four teams in the country, across the top four sports (well, close anyway). The writers, bloggers, editors KNOW these teams like no other market paper. And they know the rest of the teams really, really well too.

Do news online, sure. But do sports. I read the globe sports section daily – from California. It’s better than SI, TSN, even ESPN. Play to your strengths Globe. Just don’t cut the sports out.

WWGD – do what you do best, and let everyone else do the rest. The Globe knows sports.

Bullshit. Online journalism spends much of its time responding to failings in online journalism. One may argue that it’s not enough, but online is far more self-critical than off-line ever was.

Just like the North American car companies, if media companies become leaner and more in tune with what their audience wants, they would be able save some semblance of the company. But those changes wouldn’t benefit the majority of voting members of the unions, so internal support is low.

And the NYT’s attempt to claw back $20m of their $85m loss speaks to a strategy at many big media companies right now. Boil down their assets to skeleton efficiency, but maintain control…then when there’s finally a solution to how we can monetize information again, they’ll still be in a position to play. If their best staffers haven’t left to find success online, that is.

Bridget Brown
bridgetbrown.typepad.com/viewfinder

Is it Income less Expenses = -$85M or is it
Last year’s revenue less this year’s (projected) revenue = -$85M?

the real issue re to a full digital transition – as you know – revolves around the inability to generate a significantly fat top line.

I like what former journalists are pioneering at http://www.indenvertimes.com. I think the product looks good, but their initial objectives to sign up subs to raise at least $2.5M fell short of their original expectations.

Even by cutting production costs, the P&L for a large media news org requires millions of dollars in monthly revenue to sustain the typical cost structure necessary to appropriately cover news in a local area.

What’s the solution is still not clear to me. But at least the http://www.indenvertimes.com projects seems to have a fresh approach to local coverage.

Stefano

As a blogger myself, I’m not an either/or kinda guy in this tiresome battle. I’d just like to see a little more critical balance.

If they want to survive, yes.

History suggests that they won’t lead the way, but that’s why history is littered with dead entities that didn’t change with circumstance.

As they say, evolution in action.

“unique” is not so much subjective as context dependent. The point is that you’re more likely to get what something is worth when the buyer doesn’t have available alternatives. However, if the buyer does have alternatives, you’re likely to get far less because the buyer will play them against one another.

Aurelia is absolutely right that it’s irrational and they’ll do it anyway, but I’ll go a step further.

They’d sooner kill their jobs and the company than give up what they think they’re fighting for.

Are you asking how to monetize good, valuable, unique news or how to produce it?

If you’re having trouble with monetize, how do you know that you’re producing good, valuable, and unique? (It’s harder to monetize and valuable if there are other sources.)

If you have trouble with all three, skimp on good. Never skimp on valuable to your readers. (If what you’re producing costs more than it is worth to readers, you have a hobby, not a biz.)