This won't be the end of papers going down in flames.  Personally I LIKE to hold the damn thing in my hands.  AND it's easier on the eyes.  But old FARTS don't matter.  ['til ya get olde... ... ...and by then it's too late.  I can't even read the graphics they put up for sporting events on the effin' TV set properly.  Too hard on the eyes...and every network sets 'em up differently so you don't even know where to look to find stuff.  By the time you figure it out the game is over and the next game is on a different station so you start all over again...almost as if you're friggin' Mel and Tim for goodness sake  YOUR turn'll come.  Then it'll be starting all over again like Daryl Hall and John Oats.]

Anyway...that's a LOT of folks to suddenly find themselves unemployed and out in the cold.  Puts a real dent in the economy of a smaller town...and everyone's property values drop as a glut of houses go up for sale all at once.  These horse's asses have been ripping off the local economy for years...taking all of those profits out of the marketplace and leaving behind just enough dough to pay the leanest of bills they can get away with.  Now they'll offer their former 'home' one last boot to the gonads.  Carpetbaggers!!!

Thanks a pant load.

Now...sadly...who's next?  [Cue the Beatles...It won't be long.]

Charlie wrote:

Seems like a prime opportunity for governments and corporations to take over the news business, feeding the stupid masses whatever they want to dish out.  Not a nice scenario. 

Well, both the Flat Earth Society and the Illuminati have foretold this very thing. The consumer voted with their dollars (or lack thereof). I highly doubt the news dissemination business will ever be vital signs absent. And, in the unlikely event it will, well, the masses are stupid and won't know the difference.

Actually, I might just prefer this tome, instead!

https://www.amazon.ca/What-Time-Day-Was-That/dp/1550411233

cGrant wrote:

250-300 people in a population of nearly 30 million hardly constitutes "a lot" of people out of work. While we're at it, let's get the milkman, buggy maker and all the hundreds of lost professions back to work. Forgot progress; let's bring back leeches and trial by drowning!

As is always and without fail the case YOU take the part of the cold-hearted false futurist with your basic knowledge regarding the subject matter sadly lacking either in substance or basic understanding.  250 people in a town the size of Barrie is of note.  Let's consider that these individuals will, in many cases, have family.  Not all of them...but most.  So...are we talking 750 people affected directly?  1,000?   Some own...but may have to now sell their homes.  Some rent and landlords will now have to find new renters or sit empty for awhile.  Where do they shop?  What do they buy?  How will this impact on what they do for Christmas 2017?

Will they now buy the used Focus instead of the new Fusion?  Does the local clothier lose their business to Walmart...or to the Salvation Army clothing shop?  ALL of this happening suddenly and simultaneously. Yes the newspaper business is restructuring.  Yes it is a horse and carriage kind of thing as is radio if they don't stop with the insane idea that offering a piss-poor product is the way forward.  But this laying off tons of people all in one fell swoop...and just before Xmas is SO cold...and SO typical of the lack of thinking employed by these carpetbaggers. 

Believe me...if lowly you saw this day coming...then 'they' knew about it too.  At the very least they owed their dedicated and talented employees the chance to at least slowly get away on their own terms...and they owed the town they've been plucking money out of since the dawn of the company printing press something more than..."WE're OUTTA hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Dig ya later!"

Your time will come.  I hope it will be ultra quick, ever-so-painful, and entirely impossible for you to cope with.  You will then have some understanding for the reality people face here and now and if it's something which will cause you to crawl on your belly...face down, begging for help, it will be exactly what you deserve. I expect, given your level of ignorance, that it will happen sooner than later.
 

Last edited by Old Codger (December 1, 2017 3:33 pm)

The answer is building multiple platforms, cross-branding, maintaining as direct as possible a relationship with your audience / customers (readers/viewers/listeners, advertisers,etc), and investing with thought and precision.

In 1993, after I'd been laid off from a conventional newspaper. I ran into a publisher from my past and suggested that they'd better do something about this Internet thing that was  just coming into our lives - very early stages - and was basically blown off.

I didn't get a chance to offer any possible details. Over the years, I've thought about what needed to be done - and it really needed to be at least dabbled in if not full tilt boogie, early on.

1) This was the era of bulletin boards and dial-up. Conventional media needed to embrace it and become service and content providers, leveraging their existing resources, cross-branding, etc.

2) As the internet evolved, conventional media outlets (which would have been becoming less conventional) would need to evolve, largely growing web presences and mobile destinations. Along the way they might have sold their ISP assets had the competitive pressures been too high, or perhaps they'd have become major players like Bell and Rogers. But they would have been in the thick of the digital milieu that has overtaken conventional print and broadcast, and so they'd have been in-situ to take advantage of opportunities that arose.

But by and large conventional media failed. Insular? Lazy thinkers? Bean counters? Lacking creativity? Tunnel vision? attitude that their 'precious' businesses could weather whatever was thrown at them? Some combination of these, and more.

Paper, airwaves and this internet thing are packaging and delivery vehicles. Only. Content is really the product, though content does need to fit inside the vehicle, so to speak.

 

Last edited by Saul (December 1, 2017 7:07 pm)

TL:DR

I specifically asked you a while ago what other industry/profession hasn't experienced drastic change due to moderinzation and progress? Still waiting. So, what makes THIS profession sacred?

Interesting that you choose to make this personal because, you believe, you speak on behalf of others that I write about. When was THAT election?

Given your non-stop vitriol about the profession, why do you stay in it? (if you actually are in it)