Subject: Future newspaper scenario From: web-post@planetarynews.com Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 16:53:42 -0600

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Following up on the thread of the past couple of weeks (sorry - I've 
been busy moving) ...

Consider the following trends:
   -- People have less time to read
   -- Print advertising could be a tougher sell
   -- Newsprint isn't cheap
   -- Newspapers have newsrooms, but not video operations
   -- TV stations ... vice versa
   -- The Web allows newspapers to have the immediacy of TV

   Yet ...
   -- Newspapers are still hot commodities among subway riders
   -- People still scour newspaper ads (if you don't believe me,
just leave the movie ads out one day and count the angry calls)
   -- Online news sites seem to be doing OK
   -- Readers can be trained to follow new patterns ... not as 
diabolical as it sounds -- I simply mean that new outlets of info
can draw an audience, as we've already seen)

   With all this in mind, here's a possible scenario for a 
regional news operation:
   -- "Convergence" will happen. In each area, a foresighted
TV station will partner with a newspaper. The TV stations that
don't do this will find themselves scrambling to provide the 
breadth and depth of news that readers expect online
   -- The print newspaper (finally getting to it!): Mostly a 
collection of "briefs," but with a couple of long stories. the
12-inch story will die, at least in print.
   -- The paper will point readers to the Web site for more
details. This will be helpful especially for foreign stories; 
the story that is now five inches of news and seven inches of 
insufficient background information will become five inches of
news and a URL pointing readers to all the background they want.
In case you wondered what I meant by "training readers" ... this
is it. I think readers give up on foreign stories now, but
they could be interested if they're given the chance to
educate themselves quickly.
   -- The Monday newspaper will be 85% sports. Good. Newsrooms
waste too much effort on half-baked feature ideas for a Monday
paper that the working world has no time to read.

   Some newspaper lovers will scoff at this scenario. But
speaking as a newspaper lover myself, I like this setup --
it keeps all of the things that are important to newspapers
while freeing reporters from the grind of cranking out 12-inch
stories.
   Thoughts?

   Beau Dure  
   Bdure@aol.com
 



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