Invisible Inkling

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

All About modernization

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 [...]

Modernize your newsroom today

January 14, 2008 – 9:37 am

Many employees at news organizations have a very easy time blaming out-of-date computers, front-end print publishing systems, and Web content management systems on such faceless, amorphous entities as “Corporate,” or perhaps “The Budget.”
Nevertheless, there are plenty of free or not-completely-expensive ways you can modernize your newsroom today.
Here are 5.

Use Google Documents (or any one of [...]

The one dollar newspaper

January 12, 2008 – 9:54 am

Call me some sort of radical, but here’s a simple proposal that I think could provide newspapers with a big boost in single copy sales, and profits, too:

On the rack or in the box, your newspaper now costs one dollar. When was the last time you paid less than a dollar for a bottle [...]