Comments on: Why we don’t read your paper

By: Iain Withers

Iain Withers — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:10:10 +0000

Enjoying the blog Ryan – quick point (which could apply to quite a bit of the media blogosphere).

“I definitely couldn’t care less about what the city council or school board have to say.”

Sorry to have gone quote-picking, but quite a few bloggers can come accross very flippant about the choices newsrooms make. Remember families/OAPs/local govt workers make up the readership of many local papers. They cater for them more often than twitter-holics!

By: Edward Padgett

Edward Padgett — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:31:13 +0000

Ten years ago when my children and I moved into our home half of our neighbors subscribed to the Los Angeles Times, today there are two of us receiving the newspaper on a daily basis. Without probing why so many of my neighbors have cancelled their subscriptions, they voluntarily divulge the many reasons they have deserted the newspaper I have been employed by for thirty-six years.

I suppose they feel I actually have a say in the slant the newspaper has taken under control of the Tribune Company, and now Sam Zell, as an employee?

What bothers me the most are my own children, they range in age from sixteen to twenty-seven, and have grew up with newspapers always at hand. Yet, they seldom open up the newspaper, unless they want to see a movie or check when a favorite musical group might be playing in town.

With traffic conditions horrendous, many of my neighbors and myself begin our commute to Los Angeles at 4:30 am, but our newspapers are delivered after the majority of us have left our homes.

I for one would enjoy having an afternoon edition of a newspaper delivered.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:22:11 +0000

I don’t disagree with Tim that the local section usually isn’t interesting. But his lionizing of the NY Times as what he wants doesn’t make any kind of economic or strategic sense for local newspapers.

He’s right. NY Times rocks. It and other national papers rock so much that they make local papers take on those issues pretty freaking redundant.

The only commodity that local newspapers have that national papers don’t is local news.

Sure it needs to be better. And maybe changing the approach on the way it’s presented/written would help. But to say people in that age group (of which I am a member) don’t care about local news at all really isn’t true. Check out the unofficial news sources on the web. Tons of late 20s early 30s people are talking on the web about lots and lots of local news items.

There’s interest, we’re just not capturing it.

By: Tom Cheredar

Tom Cheredar — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:20:13 +0000

I don’t see how making a large metro paper accessible to a general audience would make it better. We just need better local news.

Local news shouldn’t just cover local happenings, it needs to strive for why its important to my daily life and/or how it will affect me.

We “need” a reason to need that local content.