Religion's Loss is Richardson's Gain
Last week, Rod Dreher broke the news that The Dallas Morning News was reassigning its last two religion reporters to cover suburban schools. On Saturday, Jeffrey Weiss, one of those religion reporters, told Religion blog readers that "if you live in Richardson... please keep your eyes open for a new blog." His new assignment will focus on covering the Richardson school district. This is great news for the suburbs, which seem to get less and less media attention despite the conventional wisdom that newspapers need to become more local to survive. Just one word of warning to Weiss: whereas the DISD has been a treasure trove of newsworthy stories for The Dallas Morning News, the RISD will not be, unless you're one of those who keeps saying that newspapers ought to cover the good things happening in our communities. There is no end of good news stories to be mined in the RISD.
You Can't Escape By Going Online
Last week, we heard a raft of bad news from the media business. The publisher of many DFW suburban newspapers, American Community Newspapers, LLC, declared bankruptcy. The Dallas Morning News reassigned its last to religion reporters (see above). And bloggers were getting real touchy about the lengthening list of media jobs on their resumes.
Today, the biggest, baddest news of all was announced. A.H. Belo, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, announced dismal financial results for the last quarter. Even after several rounds of cost reductions, Belo still had a first quarter net loss of $103 million. The DMN's online revenue dropped 8 percent from a year ago. A large part of that is due to vanishing ad revenue. If last week's news from the suburban papers showed there was no shelter from the storm by going local, then this week's news shows that the Internet isn't a solution, either.
Unfair Park's Robert Wilonsky reports all this without a hint of a competitor's gloating, but readers pile on, criticizing the product put out by the DMN, declaring victory for Craigslist, and accusing the DMN of pushing the Trinity parkway and the convention center hotel to drive up the value of downtown real estate that Belo owns. It's no surprise that there would be no sympathy among Unfair Park readers. The DMN does a poor job of covering itself, so if there's a place online where people who do like the DMN are gathering to commiserate and sign electronic get-well-soon cards, I don't know where it is.
Nationally, everyone is watching whether The New York Times will shutter The Boston Globe. How long will it be before the DMN takes the top spot in the newspaper death watch?
If one needs proof that hope springs eternal in the hearts of men, look no farther than the New York Times' report that Amazon is set to introduce a large-size Kindle e-reader this week. Newspapers and magazine publishers are pinning their hopes on the Kindle being the iPod of e-readers, allowing them to start charging for online content, much like Apple's iPod was attractive enough to get music lovers to start paying for music downloads. Only time will tell whether the Kindle has the right technology and newspaper publishers have the right business skills for it to be the salvation of newspapers. Or whether it's simply too late to save newspapers like the DMN. One thing is for sure, it can't be as disastrous as an earlier DMN foray into new technology, :CueCat.
3 comments:
The Richardson ISD is a mixed bag.
There are many good stories but the RISD does not in all cases have the best interests of the entire community in mind. The RISD has refused to join Richardson's TIF zone mostly because it would lose mounds of students living in low end apartments in that area. I don't see the RISD as partners for improvement in Richardson.
The DMN writes uninformed stories about Richardson. I would hardly call this blog a gain for Richardson. You will have two guys: Weiss who doesn't live in Richardson and Ian McCann who doesn't either (assuming he hasn't been laid off or reassigned) covering Richardson. If Weiss or McCann make editorial comments on their blog then what weight does that have if they don't have an investment in Richardson?
I'll give it a chance but I am not hopeful.
OK- Ed - back the Richardson city election. Check out Destiny's Conserve and Protect blog for news on the big dust up at early voting today. Even the DMN has picked this up. Apparently, former mayor and current coalition charter member, Martha Ritter, verbally acosted several non-coalition candidates and a Richardson firefighter. Then, after she was finished, she tore the coalition mailer off of one of their signs declaring it "illegal" (which it wasn't). I hear that she was so enranged that they almost had to call the cops. What's with this woman?
"Anonymous" #1, thanks for the feedback. Sometimes the RISD and the Richardson City Council will disagree. They have different charters, different constraints, even different borders. One shouldn't automatically assume that it's the RISD who isn't taking the best interests of the entire community in mind.
As for the new DMN Richardson blog, let's not prejudge it. The DMN blogs are a mixture of straight reporting, opinion, and occasionally some idle chatter. Jeffrey Weiss' contributions to the Religion blog have struck me as being intelligent and balanced. I'm expecting the same on the new Richardson blog.
"Anonymous" #2, thanks for the heads-up about the confrontation at the early voting site. I've commented on it in today's build.
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