“The Column” turns up the heat
Posted by DickH on 27 Jul 2008 at 10:28 am | Tagged as: Lowell
Like every newspaper in America, the Lowell Sun is being squeezed financially. Evidence of that was apparent one day last week when the amount of column inches devoted to foreclosure notices and planning board advertisements exceeded the amount of commercial advertising in the paper. But shutting down the air conditioning in the newsroom as a cost saving measure was a mistake. The resulting nastiness over high heat and humidity in the workplace has spilled over into the paper as is evident by the something-negative-for-everyone Column of today. Oh, there are a few items that appear positive, but they’re really cross-dressing stabs-in-the-back to their subjects. Read it and draw your own conclusions. I’m heading to the Folk Festival right now so I’ll omit my analysis. And after all, as the saying goes, “don’t waste any bullets on someone who’s committing suicide.” But do save a paper version of this Column. When the paper’s obituary is being written in a few years, the July 27, 2008 edition will be an important artifact that will explain much about the Sun’s demise.
I’m really not sure why you think this will lead to the Sun’s demise. It’s a gossip column (frankly, one that I look forward to reading every Sunday), so of course its not hard news.
Please explain this one to me?
I thought the Column was a little crabbier than usual.
Josh
Thanks for inviting me to elaborate on my post. Here goes: Even when the economy was humming along a few years ago, newspapers across America were in financial crisis. Rising costs, changing demographics, an almost infinite variety of alternative sources of information, and a cultural disdain for the traditional media all contributed to that. With the economy as bad as it is today, newspapers are in even worse shape. My contention is that only the best run and the best written will survive. Yesterday’s Column is just one example of why the Sun won’t make the cut.
The Column has never been about gossip. For more than forty years, it’s been about sending messages, rewarding friends and zinging foes, but usually with a unifying theme and a light touch. Yesterday’s version was different. It lacked any semblance of balance and was uniformly nasty and bitter. These days, the Column is all about settling personal scores and meting out perceived punishment to those who don’t fall in line with the paper’s reactionary agenda. It’s a lot like the cranky old relative who you just stop inviting to holiday dinners – it’s no longer worth the aggravation. I believe that’s a choice many readers and advertisers have already made.
Eric Alterman has written often about this issue.
From a recent Alterman article in The Nation:
From slightly older Alterman in The New Yorker:
Yeah… it seems to me that the Sun has gotten too accustom to a lot of things.
I don’t think its going to be the best run/written that makes papers survive.
There is a public disdain for the main stream media, but that is targeted more at the big broadcasters, the networks, and the big city papers (NYT/Globe, etc).
Fact is, when it comes to what sells in a paper, it is the local paper.
What sells local papers, as compared to the big ones is the local content.
Obituaries, birth and wedding announcements. Local sports are big. Human interest stories that include pictures and names. And of course, some sort of help with understanding the local governments.
The internet is not replacing local content. We bloggers sometimes add to the total, but overall its still the professionals who find and correlate the data to dig out the true stories. We help to provide leads, but we don’t often have the contacts to check both sides and validate every fact (though we have the flexibility of adjusting our content as we learn more).. though we can be faster to the press because of this. Of course we also have our own political view as well.
What the internet has done, however, has taken key revenue streams away from the local papers.
Classified advertising is dead. Craigslist and Ebay killed that golden goose. Big box stores have killed most of the smaller stores, so there is much less advertising flyers for the wed/sunday papers.
The paper’s compensate some. Notice that the typeface for obituaries is much larger.. thus taking up more space and costing the clients more.
Special suppliments are an interesting attempt at new revenue, but they often blow up in their face when it becomes obvious that a “Tribute to Marty Meehan” involves hitting up everyone Meehan knows for advertising in that suppliment… and the “news stories” in the thing tend to seem rigged to support the subject of the suppliment. Other papers in other markets have made huge blunders with these things.
The paper website provides a new revenue stream, but it doesn’t make up for all the lost income.
The interactive features that newspapers have started (”comments”) I’m sure provide some story leads, but I find as offensive as the old web forums that allow for unattributed comments. The threads tend to devolve into namecalling and libel and unwarranted attacks.
I don’t like the obvious attempts by the local paper to drive their own opinions.. I understand it in the editorial/opinion section, but hate it when stories are chosen that fit that drive… or are written to support their goals rather than report the news.
But then again, that’s part of what makes it local too. You can always feel free to call the editor or reporter and tell him what you think. Try that with the NYT crowd.
The local papers are the ones that will probably survive.. there has been a lot of consolidation out there, but the big ones that have no local content will continue to fade.
If you look at what sells at the local stands, its the Sun, the Eagle Tribune, Nashua Telegraph and the Herald (much more local news than the Globe).
Local content is what will keep the paper alive, and always has.
Shawn wrote:
Local content is what will keep the paper alive, and always has.
You’re right, local content is what will keep smaller papers alive but the Sun long ago gave up on “local” stories.
Go back just a few years (pre-Stapleton) and look at what the local content of the paper was then and compare it to what they pass off today!
(The Pollard Library is the Sun’s “newspaper morgue”)
Kendall Wallace has a big ax to grind, and lots of people he wants to use it on. The Column is just his lackies doing his dirty work.
Hey, how’s it going for Gary Wallace at LHA since they force out Jim Milinazzo?
[…] weeks ago I wrote that the summertime-nastiness of the Lowell Sun would hasten the paper’s demise. It’s obvious […]