# Here is the future of newspapers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 28, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114 "2009-03-28T19:44:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/41 "2009-03-30T05:13:23Z")
And as for it being 16 hours out of date? Sometimes it’s better to have some time to write a story, and think about it, and let events finish, before writing about it. TV news can get the breaking story, but the newspaper gets the facts straighter much of the time. I hate reading unfinished electronic news stories that get corrected every five minutes and can’t even agree on a person’s age in all the different versions. I lose interest because nothing seems to change, or get clarified…and then the story is gone and even searching for it can be difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/42 "2009-03-30T13:36:10Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > Electronic news is only as good as the electrical systems that power them, and we’ve seen how easily we can be hoaxed, or misinformed. It’s a bit naive to think that newspapers don’t occasionally misinform. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/43 "2009-03-30T13:54:05Z")
No paper on the porch. The reality is here. When they gave me the site and said it was a demo. One crumby day and now it’s here. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/44 "2009-03-30T14:03:01Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > It’s a bit naive to think that newspapers don’t occasionally misinform. [Circulation scandals.](http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2004-08-08-belo_x.htm) [Jayson Blair.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair) [Media blackout of the John Edwards affair.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards_extramarital_affair) I said before that Americans don’t trust newspapers (indeed, they don’t trust media in general, even as they consume lots of it.) It’s true that the papers have done a lot over the years to cause people to distrust them. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/45 "2009-03-30T14:37:02Z")
First day and I can not get through. I get connection interrupted. I used 3 ways to get at it and can not get it. Crap. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/46 "2009-03-30T14:37:49Z")
I read articles on the Guardian and other websites but when I’m sitting in work I love nothing more than reading newspapers. The Guardian paper keeps my attention longer than clicking on articles on its site does. ---
**Author:** ![JuliaSqueezer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/82dd89/32.png) [@JuliaSqueezer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuliaSqueezer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/47 "2009-03-30T14:43:14Z")
If today’s experience with the Detroit Free Press is any indication of how smoothly these transitions from print to digital will go, then I fear for all of us. The website on this, the first day of the digital Free Press, has failed. Having a login and password set up is no use when the page will not load in any format. The old website is fine, but the new digital format is not available. Dead. Their customer service phones are on permanent busy signal, and have been so for hours. Not what I’d call a successful launch. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try again. I’m paid ahead, so it’s either keep trying or ask for a refund. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/48 "2009-03-30T14:55:10Z")
I can not get into the site , [www.digitalfreepress.com](http://www.digitalfreepress.com) With so much riding on the quick acceptance of the on line version, it does not work. What a horrible start. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/49 "2009-03-30T15:03:00Z")
If the paper has RSS feeds I’d use them - it solves a lot of loading issues because the data is greatly stripped down. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/50 "2009-03-30T15:11:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > I’d like to suggest that the future of print is local news. > > I can get national and international news from many sources on the internet (and TV), some of them exactly the same article that my local rag prints the next day. CNN, Reuters, MSNBC, and the AP (for examples) don’t care about in depth articles about the transit cutbacks or the scum running that fire district in North County. If the Post-Dispatch set their reporters to consistently and knowledgeably report hard news from the St. Louis area, and only gave broader news a mention, I’d happily continue to subscribe. > > Oh yeah, and they have to drop For Better or For Worse reruns and add Peanuts reruns. But that’s all. I agree. I would pay to have some decent local news instead of [this surface-level crap](http://www.reflector.com/). I want coverage of local and county board meetings. I want in-depth looks at people running for local office up to and including dog catcher. I want to know more about what’s going on in my city/county than just feel-good stories, a weather report, high school athletics, and a police blotter. Although I’m gonna have to disagree on Peanuts reruns. Once a comic goes to reruns, it goes to the trash bin. Let’s run some comics that updated sometime this week. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/51 "2009-03-30T15:49:36Z")
I got in. I can’t say I love it. Cost is now 12 bucks a month. It will cut down on trash. My wife is a coupon clipper and now you will have to print them out. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/52 "2009-03-31T00:21:12Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > News papers are NOT Green, they are also creators of greenhouse gases. The disposal f newspapers is a big problem, and the preparation of wood pulp (for paper) pollutes rivers and sreams. That is true, but one can hardly argue that networks of computers and other devices (phones, kindles, etc) are any greener. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the remains of the computers, wires, servers, (not to mention the infrastructure needed to power all this) is far, far worse environmentally than newspapers, magazines, and phone books. Last time I saw, my copy of the _Wall Street Journal_ didn’t have any arsenic in it. Nor silicon, nor lead, etc… And it was printed largely on recycled paper, and it went to the recycling center when done. Nor did it require any sort of power source for me to read. Lastly, it stands to reason that the level of technical civilization needed to maintain the internet as a primary news distribution outlet has a far greater environmental impact than one where news is distributed via paper, using ink and rotary presses. Or even a civilization where TV and radio are the prime distribution mediums. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/53 "2009-03-31T17:56:23Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > Tried that with my mom. She doesn’t want to have 100 Puzzles, Easy to Hard! in a book. She wants to do her puzzle a day, and then wait til the next day to double check her answers if she missed something. She’s not a puzzle addict…she just likes to do a puzzle a day. But, the puzzle a day already ranges from easy to hard, based on the day of the week. The book I have is actually marked by the day of the week. She could just do a Monday one on Monday, then check the answers in the back on Tuesday, when she does the Tuesday puzzle, etc. What’s so hard about that? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/54 "2009-03-31T19:38:58Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > That is true, but one can hardly argue that networks of computers and other devices (phones, kindles, etc) are any greener. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the remains of the computers, wires, servers, (not to mention the infrastructure needed to power all this) is far, far worse environmentally than newspapers, magazines, and phone books. Last time I saw, my copy of the _Wall Street Journal_ didn’t have any arsenic in it. Nor silicon, nor lead, etc… And it was printed largely on recycled paper, and it went to the recycling center when done. Nor did it require any sort of power source for me to read. But it isn’t really a fair comparison. You aren’t going to be able to get people to give up their phones and computers and offer them magazines and papers instead. They’ll have your head. And since they will have the electronic gear anyway, pushing content onto it makes sense. Go where the audience is. Some of you sound as if you would have been telling bands not to do concerts on the radio and just sell cylinder records instead. More environmentally friendly - no wasteful electricity needed to listen to the sound. Never mind that nobody is listening anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/55 "2009-03-31T22:04:30Z")
**JohnT** : The electronics industry and the infrastructure for the Internet is a sunk cost. We already have it and it isn’t going away. In fact, it’s going to be expanded because it’s cheaper to expand it at this point than to try and run services alongside it. That’s the big thing newspapers are running into: A network is more valuable the more stuff you can access from it, which makes the Internet a gold mine and newspapers somewhere between a played-out coal mine and a vermiculite mine slowing filling with lung-destroying dust. In a few years most newspapers will have all the intrinsic quaint appeal of a Superfund site. Newspapers are really crappy versions of Reddit or Digg: They aggregate other peoples’ work (wire stories and syndicated columns and comics) with some (small) amount of original content and lard it through with completely untargeted advertisements. Oh, and there’s some really tiny concession to feedback in the form of letters to the editor, but compared to social sites that just barely qualifies as a slap in the face. It’s nothing. They can only survive in the absence of competition. The only thing newspapers have is local news. **But that doesn’t mean local news will save newspapers.** They will actually have to get off their asses, cut the syndicated and wire crap, and do a decent job of _focusing_ on local news to justify their existences. I’m not kidding about newspapers cutting syndicated and wire content. It’s mostly junk and we can get it online now anyway. Newspapers carrying it are decreasing their value by stuffing their pages with old shit everyone who cares about news has already read. It’s like filling inches with random MySpace posts from three weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/56 "2009-03-31T22:47:52Z")
**gonzo** , they have not stopped publishing the paper version of the Free Press. Just go to the store or newsstand to buy it for crying out loud. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/57 "2009-04-01T00:28:52Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > But it isn’t really a fair comparison. You aren’t going to be able to get people to give up their phones and computers and offer them magazines and papers instead. They’ll have your head. > > And since they will have the electronic gear anyway, pushing content onto it makes sense. Go where the audience is. > > Some of you sound as if you would have been telling bands not to do concerts on the radio and just sell cylinder records instead. More environmentally friendly - no wasteful electricity needed to listen to the sound. Never mind that nobody is listening anymore. That’s not my point: I didn’t mention word one regarding the issue of newspaper vs internet, have I? On that issue, the world isn’t going to move on account of my opinion, so I didn’t offer one. 😉 My point was that the meme that the internet/computers are more “environmentally sound” than paper isn’t necessarily so, not when you add in the more environmentally toxic compounds and materials found in a computer, plus the energy needed to view the content (on both ends of the line, plus plenty of points in the middle), plus the technological infrastructure needed to run and maintain such a thing as the internet… it all counts. And it’s a lot bigger than the infrastructure needed for the Trees-Lumber-Pulp-Paper-Newsprint process: We had _that_ down pat in 1890. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/58 "2009-04-01T00:41:37Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **JohnT** : The electronics industry and the infrastructure for the Internet is a sunk cost. We already have it and it isn’t going away. In fact, it’s going to be expanded because it’s cheaper to expand it at this point than to try and run services alongside it. That’s the big thing newspapers are running into: A network is more valuable the more stuff you can access from it, which makes the Internet a gold mine and newspapers somewhere between a played-out coal mine and a vermiculite mine slowing filling with lung-destroying dust. In a few years most newspapers will have all the intrinsic quaint appeal of a Superfund site. > > Newspapers are really crappy versions of Reddit or Digg: They aggregate other peoples’ work (wire stories and syndicated columns and comics) with some (small) amount of original content and lard it through with completely untargeted advertisements. Oh, and there’s some really tiny concession to feedback in the form of letters to the editor, but compared to social sites that just barely qualifies as a slap in the face. It’s nothing. They can only survive in the absence of competition. > > The only thing newspapers have is local news. **But that doesn’t mean local news will save newspapers.** They will actually have to get off their asses, cut the syndicated and wire crap, and do a decent job of _focusing_ on local news to justify their existences. > > I’m not kidding about newspapers cutting syndicated and wire content. It’s mostly junk and we can get it online now anyway. Newspapers carrying it are decreasing their value by stuffing their pages with old shit everyone who cares about news has already read. It’s like filling inches with random MySpace posts from three weeks ago. Again, I’m not arguing that the internet is/is not superior to newspapers in manner of distribution, my point was merely that the internet is not the “environmental slam dunk” compared to newspapers, magazines, etc that people think it is. There’s no way possible that it is environmentally sounder, not when over [85-90% of it ends up in Asian landfills](http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0221-07.htm). ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/59 "2009-04-01T00:56:52Z")
I got up ,every morning for many years and got the newspaper. It started my day. So far I have been hit and miss with the computer. I do not get up and think about the on line paper first thing.I doubt I will get there ever.i suppose the recyclable trash collectors will like the change. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114/60 "2009-04-01T02:39:22Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I got up ,every morning for many years and got the newspaper. It started my day. So far I have been hit and miss with the computer. I do not get up and think about the on line paper first thing.I doubt I will get there ever.i suppose the recyclable trash collectors will like the change. Seriously, gonzo, you can still start your day with the newspaper. Sunday through Saturday, the Detroit Free Press is still publishing a print edition. That has not changed. You may not be able to reach out onto your porch to get it on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wendesdays and Saturdays, but on those days you can still go to the corner newspaper box, or the gas station, or the store and pick one up. The Freep is even offering same-day mail delivery for the days it’s not offering home-delivery via their delivery drivers. And on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, you’ll still get your Free Press delivered as you always have. I’ll take this new hybrid system over massive layoffs, shutdowns or completely abandoning print altogether. But what sucks even worse than not being able to start your day with a newspaper on your porch? Being the guy that used to start his day putting it there. But to repeat: You can still do your crosswords in the Free Press everyday. Your wife can still clip coupons out of the Free Press. And you can still start your day holding an honest-to-goodness paper version of the Free Press in your hands. It just might take a little more effort on your part four days out of the week. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-the-future-of-newspapers/491114.md?page=4)