"(Reuters) - Lee Enterprises Inc (LEE.N), which publishes 48 daily newspapers including St. Louis Post-Dispatch, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to refinance nearly $1 billion in debt, as newspapers struggle with falling advertisement dollars and dwindling readership."
If they could just sell one edition of a newspaper for $1 billion, everything would be OK.
I do feel it would be devastating to not have a local newspaper in a town this size. Now, let me phrase this correctly.... we really haven't had a representative newspaper in this town for as many years as I can recall. It has gotten only worse in the most recent years.
ReplyDeleteThe reporting is slanted, totally false in some circumstances, and out of touch with what is really happening in Racine. While you could forgive errors and false claims due to trying to be timely with information, the retractions and corrections that you see, are often so late or vague, the damage has already been done.
Their handling of online content is even worse. The stronghold hand of the online editors shooed away some of their most intelligent, eager and informed commentators and (let me add) providers of "free" sourcing.
They turned a deaf ear to problems the real citizens of Racine brought to their attention, just because it didn't "fit" with their version of what Racine should be.
Our own website was created from this harsh handling of online information. We got fed up and left. Look what remains at that site... nothing but trash and bizarre, embarrassing, outre thinking and troll comments.
It's the management. They publish a paper that few people If any have ever been proud of. As KK states, the city NEEDS a newspaper. They need to get their heads together, and that includes input from the people that buy the paper, and they will fix the problem. One thing for certain, they have to STOP giving too much information away online for free. If I want to read the information everyday that they provide, I should pay a fee for that privilege. Granted, I don't agree with much that they print with bias, but they do have the right to an opinion, but only on the opinion page.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if they (Journal Times) don’t have a large enough resource pool of reporters or if management will not allow certain information to be published. There are many times you can go online and read information/happenings about Racine on the JSOnline edition and I personally feel that is wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou can read about shootings, bank robberies and the like full time and that stuff is getting old...oh hell it is old!
I know many papers have changed the format and have gone to a smaller sized paper with smaller print; I can understand the size to save the cost of paper, but the smaller print makes it much harder for older generation people to read. I guess they try to put as much as possible into the new size buy using smaller print.
I would hate to see Racine without a local paper and if you had to buy for instances, the Wall Street Journal and have it delivered, with the Post Office in such sad shape you might not get Monday's paper until Wednesday!
This doesn't really surprise me. The internet has been slowly fading out the hard copy newspaper for years.
ReplyDeleteIf I were running the Journal Times, I would try to attract black and Hispanic readers. Those markets are now served by community weeklies, but the resources of a large newspaper could be put to good use there. They're also more likely to be poorer and not have internet access. One newspaper might get passed around to four people, but that's one more paper than you're selling now.
ReplyDeleteWait, wait, I just remembered how racist Racine is. If it's economically feasible to print three different newspapers, then it might work.
How come no article about this in the Journal Times? lol
ReplyDeleteThey have an online story about it in the business section, but I don't know about the print edition.
ReplyDelete