Looks like just another arrogant attempt to get a lot from as little as possible. And it ain’t gonna work. Innovative approach? Sure. But who’s going to pay the bills after they’ve killed the newspaper? Who’s going to pay Howard?

Instead of trashing the very print industry of which he is a part, why not go to work preserving and innovating the original product, which is bleeding to death from mismanagement.

There is a lot of panic and fear out there–with good reason. But people still need a way to get local news and that need is not satisfied by a 30 second news segment on a distant tv station who only seem to notice the towns around them if someone gets killed.

It is not satisfied by a bunch of people with nothing better to do than roam the streets and use their cell phones to ‘record breaking news’. One might question the source of anything posted by anyone who is not a qualified journalist. Gossip. Misinformation. Inflammatory hurtful remarks. Sensationalism with little basis in fact–judging by the comments left on most news websites. I think that is what we can expect. But hey! It’s free. Nevermind that it’s mostly the nutcases with axes to grind who will be posting the ‘news’. That, or biased individuals with something to gain from it. Yes. High quality stuff. I can’t wait.

Cut staff, sell presses, downsize to smaller office space. All reasonable cost cuts in these difficult times. But instead of expecting the remaining individuals to do the jobs of twice, and in some cases three times as many, why not take that $ and put it into software that makes it possible for a smaller staff to do that work efficiently? Including web.

Compromising service and quality is not the answer. If no one reads your product then advertisers are not going to support it.

I guess we’ll have to see if Howard is such a hotshot then when he is trying to live on $12k a year…

http://tinyurl.com/6m4upa

I don’t think forcing a paper exclusively to the web is a smart move right now though. You still have a bunch of older people that don’t know how to turn a computer on.

Put half of the story on-line for free…just a tease…then charge for full access. Hell, include it in the price of subscription or charge for Internet only access.

Either way, it’s going to mean job cuts.

On top of all that, there is a decent percentage of people that justs don’t like to read extensively on the computer. I work with a bunch of them. If they get an email that is more than a paragraph long, they print it and read it off paper. I find it hysterical, but that’s what they’re comfortable with.