Invisible Inkling

Ryan Sholin on the future of newspapers, online news and journalism education.

All About competition

It’s not the economy, stupid

March 6, 2008 – 9:30 pm

I’m sorry, but every time a newspaper executive discussing layoffs and buyouts blames things like “a drastic economic slump and the meltdown of the Bay Area housing market” I laugh.
Are you kidding?  Is that a joke?
Your profits are shrinking because The World Has Passed You By.
For more than ten years newspaper companies have done Not [...]

Debunking the coulda-shoulda-woulda myth of online news

January 21, 2008 – 7:18 am

I’m trying quite hard to stay out of the business of chasing after curmudgeons with a laptop in my hand, shouting “But you got it all wrong!”
Trying. Quite. Hard.
So let this be just a generic blanket response to a common misconception about the business of online news.
The premise, as laid out in hand-wringers [...]

Your real competition

January 11, 2008 – 6:27 am

You *think* your competition is the guy at the TV station who always rip-and-reads your stories, or the reporter on your beat at the major metro from the big city 12 miles away, or that alt-weekly with the nasty cartoonist, don’t you?
Sorry, but that’s simply not the case.
Oh, sure, your ad reps and their [...]