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Local newspapers? Humbug, says America

September 26, 2011

Local newspapers don’t earn much respect from a majority of Americans, a new Pew Research Center survey reveals.

Most of the 2,000 people interviewed for the survey said they wouldn’t miss their local paper if it disappeared.  They also said they wouldn’t have any trouble finding pertinent news if their local paper no longer existed.

Online news services, such as CalCoastNews, are gaining rapidly in favor among younger readers, although websites produced by newspapers and television stations “do not score highly as a relied-upon information source on any topics.”

“This move by younger users to rely on the Internet for local information puts considerable pressure on traditional news sources,” the report said. Although most new companies have “moved online with ambitious website and social media strategies,” evidence exists that more people are finding specialty websites a preferable way to find local news.

The survey said Americans are turning to an ever-widening range of news sources, and word of mouth continues to be a major source of many people’s daily information intake.

People said they scoured their newspaper and online news services for everything from community and crime news to arts and culture, social services, zoning and development.

Newspapers tied with Internet sources for news on housing, schools and jobs, and with TV for local political news.

Among the survey’s other findings:

– Fifty percent of adults use mobile devices to get local news and information. Information about restaurants and other activities is a popular category.

– Only 17 percent of adults said they get local information from social networking sites such as Facebook at least once a month.

– 55 percent of those surveyed said they get local news and information by word of mouth at least once a week.

– Although many people get news online, the websites of newspapers and TV stations “do not score highly as a relied-upon information source on any topics.”

– Nearly half of those surveyed said they don’t have a “favorite” local news source.


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I have just recently subscribed to the Tribune, just to see how it is. Previously, my only exposure to it was at the local waffle house (usually someone had bought it and finished it before their breakfast was done, thus “donating it” to whomever wanted it).


I have to say, it’s not AS BAD as I’ve heard; then again, I mostly am seeing stuff I already read on CCN there, plus the obits and various local items.


I’m not partial to all the AP stuff, it does seem like a cop-out. I can understand the paper’s concern regarding potential revenue and information streams (via ads, subscriptions, access, etc). Why do you think Karen & crew get so bad-mouthed by their peers? (or at least poo-poo’d)


I am paying MORE for CCN than I am for the Tribune, purely voluntary, and I encourage anyone who enjoys CCN to do the same (simple paypal monthly auto-deduct).


I prefer the truth, even (and especially) when it may hurt. I’ll continue my subscription to the Tribune to give them a year or so; all the while, I’ll be sending my donation to CCN monthly.


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Without the Trivune how would anybody know if there was a shark in the ocean?


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As someone who has read the Tribune since the 70s, my problem stems from the fact that it’s 50% advertising, 45% stories either from a news service like AP, or from an earlier story printed in the LA Times and 5% local news. Some weekdays, its a thick as a pamphlet. I hardly buy the Trib anymore.


At the risk of being bombarded with “thumbs downs” I also get my news from the LA Times and NY Times. Although I often disagree with an article, the stories are always in depth and , more often than not, interesting. Sundays, I’m glued to my chair for hours. If I still crave more, I’ll check online at the NY Post for a chuckle.


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I switched to the IPAD version of the Tribune. Costs $1 month and it displays the entire paper, even classifieds and advertisements. Don’t have to deal with wet papers anymore too!


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There’s nothing wrong with those papers, I used to read those and the Wall Street J. (not cover to cover) before I had kids, now I’m lucky read any paper.


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…..oh, One more thing.


I have never seen a negative review of any restaurant ever “reviewed” in the Trib. They are so fearful of losing prospective advertisers, that I could open a restaurant, heat up a Lean Cuisine, put it on a plate, and sit back and wait for the glowing “review”. Which is ok if you present and review as advertisement.


Just another of my pet peeves about the Trib…


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Wow, what a great story.

Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.

The difference between getting your news on the Internet and from a newspaper (any newspaper), is there is no tradition of ethics backing up the Internet, that and anonymity of the posters who say whatever outrageous thing they want, truth or a lie, and face no repercussions.

The Internet is filled with people who pass off their opinions as news.

Blogs don’t deal in facts, they deal in opinions, and unfortunately, the younger people of today, who are mentioned here as the future for journalism, have the attention span of gnats hence their news gets spoon fed to them in tweets and Facebook posts.

Those are social networking sites, not news sites and anyone who relies on them for pertinent news, is not going to be well informed and likely doesn’t know what the term ”news” even means.

Americans are notorious for wild cultural swings and have embraced different trendy things time and time again. The Internet is popular because it’s still relatively new.

Some day the government will crack down on unrestricted speech and will start holding people accountable for the things they post online. Newspapers/free press started out this way too, uncensored with no repercussions for what a person printed. Libel laws had to be passed to reign it in to an acceptable level. This will eventually come to the Internet too.

When that happens the Internet will lose some of its cool and start to play itself out. Someday it’ll be as obsolete as you all seem to think newspapers are becoming (or already are).

If newspapers disappear, so too will another American tradition. The press and preachers are the only two occupations protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Now, all that said, I do get a kick out of CCN, but I wonder could it even exist without taking news from other sources (online and otherwise) and rewriting and posting them here? Could it exist if Karen and Co. had to come up with 30 stories every week to fill a weekly paper or were required to post a new story every single day and on deadline or risk being fired?

I say, educate yourself every day — read a newspaper.


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ref your sentence ….


“The difference between getting your news on the Internet and from a newspaper (any newspaper), is there is no tradition of ethics backing up the Internet …”


Oh Pleeaase !!!! Like the Tribune bosses have a tradition of ethics?


Did somone spike your bowl of cereal this morning Paperboy?


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We have a local newspaper??? J/K, but seriously, the Tribune is garbage. The only “investigative” story they’ve done in months is Mayor Marx leaves her trash can in public view. SHOCKING!!


The Tribune does back patting stories every year. They “win” accolades from a newspaper association that gives out something like 700 prizes to 300 competitors. Everyone takes home two or three accolades which are then featured in articles titled, “Tribune wins three Journalism awards”


And, “paperboy”, is not the Tribune filled with anonymous outrageous posters? So what? It’s the story, not the comments that are the news.


CCN is publishing the truth. Print publishing is dead, is filled with cobweb minded oldsters, wastes paper and pollutes landfills. Someday soon CCN will have the staff to turn out 30 articles day and the Tribune’s happiest paper in America slant will disappear.


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Getting a story from blogs or multiple postings from others gives a realistic subjective view, opinion or otherwise of the facts, product or perhaps place in the story. A reporter is typically the last to show at the scene, has a limited view of what happened and then whatever the come up with is heavily scrutinized by editor’s so not to insult or offend anybody in fear of libel charges and that’s a fact. CCN, its staff and its followers like many informative outlets tell it like it, no politically correct sugar coated articles.

So to educate yourself read what MANY have to say, not a PC minded over opinionated bird cage liner created by a company with much to lose pissing off their advertisers. You are correct though in one statement of yours that an American tradition is dissapearing, and that’s a quality newspaper.


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Why does it matter if people post anonymously? If people don’t like it then they don’t have to read it, no big deal IMO. In this forum all the articles have names by them, it’s just the posters that for the most part don’t use our names but we aren’t journalist so it doesn’t really matter.


Any good news source will rely on outside sources ie AP or else they aren’t that good. How could anyone expect for example CCN to get all their stories from just local sources? If they did then we would miss out on a lot of news. I don’t care where they get their stories as long as they’re written well, accurate and interesting. I would rather Karen use some stories say from the LA Times so I don’t have to.


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Awhile back I emailed a story to Karen, twenty minutes later it was a daily brief, so I know we readers can also contribute .


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I wish I knew what you contributed.


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this


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Hmm, I’m surprised that I didn’t chime in on that one. Thanks for finding it.


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Paperboys,


In reading your comment again, you’re a crackpot. Internet journalism *IS* “the press” and is protected by the Constitution. Internet publications are just as subject to libel as any print publication.


Sure CCN reprints news briefs from other sources. So does every newspaper. CCN turns out far more investigative work in a week than the daily Tribune produces in three months.


Just look at CCN’s detailed story today about judge compensation (along with pertinent documents) and compare to the Tribune’s story about the mayor’s trash barrel!


The Tribune has been around for well over 100 years and has a large staff. CCN turns out an amazing product with an incredibly small staff, and as it steals more of the Tribunes readers who yearn for real stories it will become even more refined.


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Paperboys says: “Blogs don’t deal in facts, they deal in opinions”

This is in fact, just your opinion. How ironic.


Paperboys says: “When that happens the Internet will lose some of its cool and start to play itself out. Someday it’ll be as obsolete as you all seem to think newspapers are becoming (or already are).”

Then you do not really understand what the internet is.


You do not really understand what a blog is.

This is not a Blog, no matter how many times you use that word in a attempt to be derogatory .


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

“A blog (a blend of the term web log)[1] is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”


Oh no, I linked to the internet, can’t be true! How about Webster:


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog

“Definition of BLOG

a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer; also : the contents of such a site.”


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fear uncertainty doubt

Internet will lose some of its cool and start to play itself out

like the ipod i pad i fone

dead lines are flat earth


attention span of gnats

having a wee bit of difficulty getting a drink from the firehose are we?

here


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To begin let me thank Cal Coast News for following the canons of journalism.


I qave up on Tribune years ago.


Sandra Duerr, her buddy Chip and the editorial staff have miserably FAILED the citizens of this county.


There was a time that the Tribune did a reasonably good job in reporting government misdeeds but those times are long gone.


For fear of disenchanting some of their advertisers, the Tribune shuns stories of dishonesty until the situation is exposed by others sources, such as Cal Coast News.


As an example, look at the Tribunes recent investigative endeavor under the headline…

“Tribune nabs 4 of 5 elected SLO officials storing their bins illegally”


Are you kidding me? It’s not that this shouldn’t be reported or that the hypocrisy of people like Andrew Carter should not be exposed, but is this the best the Tribune can come up with?


Look at the recent court decision concerning Heritage Oaks Bank that was reported by Cal Coast News …. http://calcoastnews.com/2011/09/heritage-oaks-bank-loans-fed-the-monster/


Here we have a significant story that has impacted many elderly citizens in the county, yet the Tribune sits on its hands. Why? Advertising dollars perhaps? Close alliance with some of the people on the HOB board of directors?


As quoted in the Cal Coast story, “The court said the bank’s actions “fed the monster” and “but for Heritage Oaks Bank’s willingness to continue its business with defendant Guth and Estate Financial Inc. the defendant’s crimes most certainty would have been detected far earlier.”


Lets also look how the Tribune dragged its feet on the Kelly Gerhart/Hurst Financial fiasco. Had the Tribune done their job early on and run the warning flag up the pole, who knows how many innocent people in our community could have been prevented from losing millions.


Why didn’t the Tribune do their job in this case ? Perhaps they didn’t want to step on the toes of the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce who selected King Gearhart as Citizen of the Year.


The people of this county need to send a message to the Tribune … You want readership? Then start taking the journalism profession seriously and do your job.


Everyone need to convey their disgust to McClatchy News Company. For those of you with the inclination to stand up for your communities, here is some contact info for Duerr’s boss


The McClatchy Company

2100 Q Street

Sacramento, CA 95816-6899

Main Phone: 916-321-1855

ptira@mcclatchy.com


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Oh good Lordy… my bad. :) Could you imagine if Wolf took over for Dave LOL…


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Tribune are you listening?? Probably not till it’s too late, which is what is happening to them now.


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Much of what modern media sources tell us is pure spoon fed crap compliments of one of their paying supporters or long time pals. The Trib and KSBY are perfect examples of how pitiful and selective what their willing to report can be and it has nothing to do with importance. Hats off to CCN and their staff for havin the cajones to tell it like it really is.


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It seems like local papers have never been that good but. In one small town that I lived in they would print on the front page stories such as ‘Nelly Jones is visiting her sister in Elko Nev.’ So all and and all our papers arn’t that bad. I picked up a Trib for the first time in many a moon the other day simply to check out the legal notices, it seems to be pretty sad these days. The local news and local investigative news is much much better here at CNN and in the New Times. There is basicly very little local news in the Trib. days. The only reason that I go to the Trib online is to read the letters to the ed. and to do the Sudokus.


I don’t usually get a newspaper anymore but I do like to read the legal notices (I guess it’s the nosy gossipy side of me) and I don’t see that online here, in the New Times or in the Trib.. Wish someone would put that info on the internet.


The Tribs days are numbered, I can’t see them being around much longer unless someone with forward thinking comes in and takes over.


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LOL correction, not CNN but CCN. Not quite CNN yet.


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And never will be.


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True it never will be and it isn’t intended to be. I get my National news from CNN and my local news from CCN. Then I fill in with a “scan” of the Trib, KSBY (sometimes) and NT for good measure. I also scan and read the NY Times and LA Times daily but don’t spend much time reading unless there is something “that I think” is important.


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