I started reading you in the NY Daily News many years ago. My morning always began with the Daily News, Newsday, The Post, and The NY Times. Then there were the local papers.
None of these papers are the same anymore. Newsday has become a glorified local happenings paper filled with advertisements and the occasional news story. The Post while entertaining is mostly gossip and tabloid news. The Daily News still has more news than the others, but there really is no features sectin. And the Times became so in love with itself for awhile that it really lost its luster.
I read most of my news online now and wonder if maybe this is why the newspapers are having such trouble. In this economy, reading 3 or 4 papers a day is costly. I hate to keep saying it, but 24 hour news access has its perks, but how can the daily papers keep up?

Alt weeklies are the way to go if you can. The Stranger (Seattle) was great when I lived there.

The fact of the matter is that it is becoming an outdated media format seen as being increasingly irrelevant or increasingly biased.

How can it compete with just putting msn.com into my browser and reading for free?

They need to adapt to the times, start doing wired & wireless deliveries to devices like kindle, provide interactive content and a small monthly subscription or sustain themselves entirely via advertising with their content.

I'm sorry to say this Miss Alkon, but the day of the daily paper is nearing its doom.

Either the newspapers, and those whom are employed through them in some form or fashion, will adapt to the new electronic format, or they will go the way of the victriola.

or the 8 track tape, or beta tape, if you prefer those comparisons.

Years ago Boston magazine had an annual issue that was a must read. It was the "Best + Worst of Boston" issue.
It covered all kinds of stuff, everything from restaurants, dry cleaners, health clubs, florists, etc.
It was filled with personal anecdotes like how some dry cleaner lost a pair of pants and then told the customer to screw. The "Worst of" was some of the most usefull info you could get.
They no longer do the "Worst of", it's now just a "Best of Boston" issue. Mysteriously, most of the "winners" are also advertisers in Boston Magazine. Not so mysteriously, no one reads it anymore.

Sorry Amy, I didn't mean as far as being published, just as far as reading. Besides, they give it away for free so I don't know that they pay at all.

Alt weeklies have their own niche and tend to not bow down to the mass public by over editing their content to be bland and pre-chewed, which is why I prefer them.

Our local paper does have a website, and even a forum where you can comment on some of the articles. But I still like actually holding the paper in my hand and reading it, and then doing the crossword puzzle. I dunno, something about the smell of the newsprint and actually putting pen to paper soothes me, I guess. o.O

Reading my local daily I find that anything but the most local news I have already heard days before (most likely online). I do not really care to know that some house caught fire, for example. A couple times a year they have a good research store. Frankly, I wonder why I buy the paper? I don' anymore. I forgot to renew and didn't notice for over 2 months.

The weekly alt paper is really only good for finding out about local concerts. I guess some are interested in which bar serves the strongs bloody mary or whatever.

Warren Buffett loved newspapers as investments due to the inevitable monopoly in every local market.

I wouldn't at all mind seeing the NY Times, and the once-great LA Times, go out of business. They both are main pillars of the "lace curtain" that continues to foster gender war, as well as everything else PC.

Hey, don't think the papers are the only publishers afraid to make a given demographic mad, or just disappoint them.

Confirmation bias is so ingrained in the average viewer that they "lock up" if they see something they don't agree with.

Do you think they read blogs they don't like? Look at the crowd around Sadly, No. Sample the unearned prestige of commenters at Pharyngula. PZ Myers is a serious scholar, but the audience comments show a sad tendency to assume authority that isn't there.

It's a comprehensive behavioral factor. I asked a grossly unpopular question at work last week, in response to a complaint that (a technical group) wasn't measuring up: "What about someone else's sloth is an excuse for you to relax?"

We have a problem with some of our people - actually, most of them - choosing to do nothing when something is in error, or is broken. They have been taught, like so many in public, that such things are someone else's problem. It's uncomfortable to think, and to fix things.

"You often ask them here, and I love ya for it."

I often wonder about that, Amy. Some of your topics are more thought provoking than others and I notice you'll weigh in more in some than others. How often do you laugh at the craziness that takes over the comment section some days and are you genuinely interested sometimes or just gauging reactions? I could picture you at your computer laughing saying, "oh here goes so and so again!"

Well, thanks, Amy - and here's another two questions sure to be unpopular at newspaper offices:

What leads you to think that removing content makes people more likely to read your paper?

What makes you think that reporting on what another news agency has said makes your paper important?

Another thing that should be mentioned is the hysteria caused by watching or reading news. When I grew up, we played outside, walked everywhere, etc. Then Etan Patz disappeared on his way to school and that was the start of things changing.
People didn't really pay attention to the fact that it was one kid out of how many because the story was personalized. If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone became the thought process. It was also ignored that most likely it was through someone close to the family that he disappeared. After that was John Walsh and the terrible tragedy with his son, and that was pretty much it where I came from.
I live in NY, Long Island actually, and despite our reputation NY is a great place to live and a place that gets a bad rap when it comes to crime and safety. I take my children into Manhattan often, and I've never been in fear for any of our safety. But little Etan was from a very nice, safe part of Manhattan, and that did start the mindset back then.

Sorry, not sure why that last comment posted in the wrong area.