Is Globe & Mail Going Way Of Do-Do Bird?

[Michael Hardner]

Murdoch is right, but when have executives done much better than cling to the liferaft ?

Case in point is TV. With Cable channels splintering the viewership for over thirty years, how have the major networks been doing ?

CNN Article

The first week of July was the lowest rated week of network TV ever. And Cable TV has been around for twenty years longer than the web so can we expect newspapers to have any better luck at recapturing their splintered audience ?

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I think the future will revolve around streaming media into cell phones. Personal, portable and relatively inexpensive. Look for a complete elimination of long distance charges for everything but international calls soon.

I think the next little treasure will be print on demand booths! Instead of a phone booth, you walk in, plug in and down load to a pay per print facility. Cell phones have GPS capability, so I will suggest that local mapping technology will rolled into a sort of super yellow pages to give people complete directions on how to get to a place for shopping. Printed out at a pay per print booth of course!

Times are achangin'!

[August1991]

Bell Globemedia strikes me as the least risky way to face the uncertainties of future technology. It combines telephone (including wireless) with TV (including specialty) and a newspaper - the Globe & Mail no less.

I think ISPs should simply offer a low cost monthly subscription to a local newspaper in addition to their Internet connection fee. The Globe & Mail will continue to exist but in an increasingly non-paper form.

Journalists (in particular columnists) are going to face competition though from ordinary blogs and forums.

I'm intrigued with people like Kate at Small Dead Animals who use their web site to promote their small business. (In her case, she paints hockey masks and the like. The time she spends on her website pays off well in promoting her business.)

[Michael Hardner]

We'll probably need to create some kind of certification system for information along the way. Something like what the USDA does for meat, ie. Grade A, Grade B, etc. If all major news outlets disappeared overnight, we'd be subjected to rumour mongering and the subsequent instability. As it is, they will disappear over the next twenty years, and the instability will seep in slowly, possibly even unnoticed.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I think that instability is already here. Some people, actually a lot of people use blogs to voice their political and social opinions. It is becoming very common to research things on the internet and come up with blog sites as referance material. Having said that the internet is the greatst thing since sliced bread when it comes to democracy and free speech.

A rating system may be preferable but I don't think it is feasible within the internet environment. In order to do this it would required service provider intervention, and that is censorship.

[Michael Hardner]

Not exactly.

You could have some kind of self-regulating body such as the Comics Code authority when they formed in the 1950s. All parties would agree to fund a neutral body that would police the group.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

It is the sheer scale of the endeavor that is daunting! We are talking about literally millions of authors involved in the current environment and that will only expand. But is possible, that I admit. My question is why bother? Why not simply incorporate an independent columnist site with huge server capacity and have that specific operation provide guidelines and editorial oversight.

The concept of regulation within the industry to provide authenticity is noble, but again how practical is it in reality?

[Argus]

[i know myself I have stopped reading these pay-per-view papers, but there is so much more out there, so who cares about those idiots?

Yeah, I get most of my on-line reading from the BBC and Telegraph, with some Star, Washington Post and LA Times thrown in. There's some Canadian news on Sympatico, as well. There's no way I'm going to waste my time with pay sites like the Globe or Post.

[August1991]

Paul Wells on editorial changes at Time and the Village Voice:

Interestingly, Time's play and the Voice's — of course the two venerable shops have little in common, except that they're weekly general-interest publications — are contradictory. Time wants to increase commentary, attitude and point of view, on the assumption that simple news-gathering is a function that no longer offers much value. The Voice's new management is going precisely in the opposite direction: since the internet offers so much free opinion it's like drinking from a firehose, the only journalistic function that's still worth anything is reporting.

The uproar in my industry — you can add Tuesday's launch of an afternoon, download-and-print edition of the Toronto Star — is, of course, a product of the second internet boom.

IMV, the download-and-print idea won't work. Even download-and-screenread is too cumbersome. I don't even think the G & M subscription idea will work in the long run. I wonder too about Internet advertising unless it becomes alot more focussed.

The only thing tenable now is too bundle news-gathering in with ISP. Bell Globemedia seems the best approach.

I agree with Village Voice. There's ample opportunity for opinion and analysis on weblogs and forums. Readers want straight information gathering and reports.

[M.Dancer]

90% of Globe content is online. The remaining 10% are opinion and columns and advertorials. People who sunscribe to the Globe online aren't run of the mill hacks and news junkies....they are subscribing to get access to the Globe's Investor gold site.

I personally could'nt function without my paper edition. It archieves nicely and I can take it to the shitter.

[August1991]

There's been a shakeup at the upper ranks of the Toronto Star, Canada's largest-circulation newspaper, with both the daily's publisher and editor-in-chief being replaced Monday

Gone from The Star are publisher Michael Goldbloom and editor-in-chief Giles Gherson, who have run the paper since 2004.

Jagoda Pike, a former publisher of the Hamilton Spectator, was appointed publisher of the Star and president of Star Media Group. Fred Kuntz, who has been publisher of The Waterloo Region Record in southwestern Ontario, was named editor-in-chief.

The Spectator and Record are two key sister papers to the Star in southern Ontario.

No reasons for the changes were given by parent company Torstar Corp.

CBC

Torstar shares were trading around $24 a year ago and now they're around $20.

Here's what Kinsella said:

As you have been reading here and, um, here for the past few months, the Toronto Star is in some financial trouble. So the word this aft is that the two top guys got the chop. I will of course be columnizing on it – I mean, what self-respecting media critic wouldn’t?

It should be obvious to everybody that newspapers and magazines are facing radical changes in the quickly approaching future.

[M.Dancer]

In Canada, tradition newspaper advertising accounted for around 24 billion dollars.

Internet advertising around 500 million.

As far as the Globe is concerned.....revenues for the globe have risen again this year as they tackle more indepth reports which give marketers more opportunity to better target messages.

Premium pay sites have the same function as the newstand price on a paper...they aren't there to add much to the revenue (and in cases like the Globe which gets over 360,000 copies coast to coast, it doesn't cover the distribution cost......), they subscription fees are to discriminate.

I can sell a newspaper to a marketer for a lot more if I can prove my readers really want my paper as opposed to that free thing they get at one subway stop and drop at another. If I can show my readers pay ....$250 a year for what I give them then I have a product that delivers a market worthy of their attention.......

If a newspaper web site can show that 20,000 people will pay for access to important info...then they can charge maybe 10x as much for advertising on it.

A lot of people predict that blogs will one day offer serious competition to the established press. They will challenge them for their eye witness reports and for their opinions pieces...there are even some sites like green footballs that make news on their own right.....but the resources of an organ like the Globe, with bureaus across the world and access to wire services, financila analysts and a who's who of political contacts ensures that the paper will remain essential reading.

[M.Dancer]

I think the best solution would be to combine an ISP with a newspaper and sell it as a package deal. (Is that why Bell bought the G&M?)

no......has more to do with media convergence......even so, the deal has soured......btw......G&M circ is up

[Figleaf]

The Globe was once an almost-great newspaper, but it is now an embarrassment. Just a few examples or what's wrong:

-generaizedl dumbing-down;

-one-note, hackneyed, repetitive editorials on international issues;

-superficiality in all other editorials;

-over-indulged, unrigorous columnists (though with some exceptions);

-lame jokey headlines;

-picture-squibs or subtitles that contradict the contents of associated articles;

-puerile cultural content;

-dilatory, distracting story style (it seems the first 1/3 of every article must be spent on 'hooks' or 'flavor' before the writer is able to get to any real content;

-totally crappy TV guide; and

-Zero quality control (misprinted pages, spelling and grammar errors, and factual inaccuracies abound).

[M.Dancer]

I don't think it is that complicated. No need for additional user fees (the favourite tool of the right, after lower taxes of course) which just ostrasize the poor. The author of the article has it right. Just advertise on the net.

The Georgia Straight does not charge for its circulation - The Globe needs to wake up. In the meantime the circualtion (hits) of the Toronto Star must be skyrocketing. Think of how much money their advertisers on the net can make.

I've basically stopped reading the Globe and Mail unless their articles are free and accessible. And guess what? The universe is continuing to unfold as it should.

In the Toronto Newspaper wars.....The star circ is down 1.5%

The publisher and the editor of the Toronto Star, Canada's biggest daily newspaper, are gone. Is Rob Prichard next?

Mr. Prichard is the CEO of Torstar Corp., the company that owns the Star, Harlequin romance books, Metroland community newspapers, half of workopolis.com and 20 per cent of Bell Globemedia, owner of CTV and The Globe and Mail. He is also a man under siege. If the rumours are correct, he is at war with some or all of the five families that control Torstar through multiple-vote shares. They fear Torstar properties, notably the Star, are shedding value at an alarming rate. Mostly, they fear Torstar's dividend stream, the prime source of their income, and the income of their children and grandchildren, is at risk. Unless the dividend is secure, they will become fallen media moguls.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/Business

(a premium access article, but must reading for those interested in Canadian news media......

Sun circulation had fallen as well, thanks to the Metro, a free rag owned by a swedish media firm in partnership with the Star.....

The globe circulation is steady in TO, up in the ROC.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have worked in Canadian media since 1983 and have had a business relationship with the Globe and Mail for almost 15 years.

[M.Dancer]

The Globe was once an almost-great newspaper, but it is now an embarrassment. Just a few examples or what's wrong:

-generaizedl dumbing-down;

yadda

yadda

yadda

-Zero quality control (misprinted pages, spelling and grammar errors, and factual inaccuracies abound).

.......Yeah, okay. If you can show me one newspaper that doesn't have typos or errors ever.........

.....but as to the "generaizedl dumbing-down", please be specific........

[M.Dancer]

I have heard that the National Post, for all intense and purposes, is bankrupct. It is being kept afloat by the Van Sun advertising, etc.

They aren't done, but they aren't making money. They have a lot of built in efficiancies that the southam chain brought to the table.

The National Post Business Mag still has a lot of clout and while the paper isn't seen as a serious challeng to the globe for ad revenues, they still take intitives from the Post seriously.

[M.Dancer]

Sorry, if I were a print publisher, I'd quit the business. It's crazy to print hundreds of thousands (millions?) of widesheet papers everyday and then send these papers thousands of kilometers on trucks. It's simpler (and cheaper) to put all this on a computer screen. That's obvious.

ummmm....they don't. The Globe for instance is put together in toronto and sent out by satellite to various printing plants across Canada....

[Figleaf]

nope

[M.Dancer]

The Globe was once an almost-great newspaper, but it is now an embarrassment. Just a few examples or what's wrong:

-generaizedl dumbing-down;

...

-Zero quality control (misprinted pages, spelling and grammar errors, and factual inaccuracies abound).

.......Yeah, okay. If you can show me one newspaper that doesn't have typos or errors ever.........

I compare it to its own past performance.

I started reading the Globe back in 1979.....They had typos then too....actually, the paper is lightyears better now than it has ever been.

[Figleaf]

/

Edited July 22, 2007 by Figleaf

[August1991]

The Wall Street Journal, in effect, admits defeat:

For over a century, The Wall Street Journal has been an icon in business, markets and journalism. In a time of change, those of us entrusted with icons face a dilemma: Do we preserve the icon as it has been, rejecting change as too risky? Or do we try to add to the qualities that created the icon in the first place, taking care not to change simply for the sake of change?

We embrace the latter approach, driven by the knowledge that your needs are constantly changing and that the Journal has constantly evolved, each time emerging more vital to more readers. This Readers’ Guide highlights why we’ve changed what we’ve changed— and that what doesn’t change is at least as important as what does.

...

The biggest change is the one Managing Editor Paul Steiger describes below: The Journal’s news department is increasing the proportion of articles that are exclusive, telling you about facts, trends, ideas and analysis you won’t see anywhere else. A little over half of the Journal in recent times has been this kind of unique coverage— more than any other newspaper, which is one reason the number of people sub-scribing to the Journal is up by 10% this year, when most newspapers have many fewer such subscribers.

Still, this means that almost half of our news was available to readers the previous day, often online. We now aim to make 80% of your Journal what-it-means journalism, devoting the other 20% to ensuring that you haven’t missed anything of importance from the previous day.

The "what-it-means" journalism is available now better on the Internet if a user knows how to look and read.

I think print journalists, particularly columnists (so-called analysts), still do not understand what is happening.

[geoffrey]

I have the Globe and the Post on my desk in the morning, read the Herald at home. I enjoy alot of perspectives from the Globe, I feel like I'm back in Ontario reading it. Then I read the Post and bring myself back to reality.

[August1991]

I have the Globe and the Post on my desk in the morning, read the Herald at home. I enjoy alot of perspectives from the Globe, I feel like I'm back in Ontario reading it. Then I read the Post and bring myself back to reality.

I had a boss who had his secretary print out all his emails because he was used to memos.

In Italy, you can see how the Bible was transcribed in the 11th century. No doubt some 16th century monks preferred the elaborate hand drawn folios.

Sorry, if I were a print publisher, I'd quit the business. It's crazy to print hundreds of thousands (millions?) of widesheet papers everyday and then send these papers thousands of kilometers on trucks. It's simpler (and cheaper) to put all this on a computer screen. That's obvious.

ummmm....they don't. The Globe for instance is put together in toronto and sent out by satellite to various printing plants across Canada....

It still winds up being trucks transporting tons of paper.

Telex machines no longer exist and I don't think it's possible to send a telegram, except in Burma and North Korea. If newspapers are to survive, they will have to change radically. Cinemascope, Surroundsound or something.

[Charles Anthony]

I had a boss who had his secretary print out all his emails because he was used to memos.

Excellent shot! Touche!

If newspapers are to survive, they will have to change radically. Cinemascope, Surroundsound or something.

Handheld computer-camera-phone, RSS or eyePods.

The "what-it-means" journalism is available now better on the Internet if a user knows how to look and read.

I think print journalists, particularly columnists (so-called analysts), still do not understand what is happening.

I do not read newspapers. I rapidly learn "what-it-means" in an entertaining and more efficient way on this forum.

Look at this forum:

- tons of people online from different places, even from around the world

- tons of people with opposing political views and agendas

- each person has the equal ability (more or less) to comment, question, refute or promote perspectives

We have a market for diverse "what-it-means" right in front of us. Newspapers are not fun and I do not need to read them. My fellow forum members do that for me.

As a side note: over the past few years, I have mechanically found it more and more difficult to read print. I am developing the habit and instinct of constantly wanting to:

- tab a separate browser so that I can refer to it later

- search through the entire text for key-words

- immediately double-check things or definitions with an online search engine

etc. etc.

I do not want to wait.