36 Comments

1. David Thomson:

I cancelled home delivery of the Houston Chronicle around two years ago. My local hometown rag might be even more liberal than the New York Times. I consider it my enemy. Rarely do I purchase an individual copy. When I give in to temptation, I try to buy one from a destitute person selling the Chronicle on the side of the road. The editor is Jeff Cohen and he is obviously Jewish. Nevertheless, the Houston Chronicle often publishes articles hostile to Israel. Cohenís wife is a well know liberal activist.

Papers like the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle are nothing but unofficial whores of the Democratic Party. Their editors and reporters usually lie to themselves and pretend to be neutral and unbiased observers. Only a fool takes them seriously. Make no mistake about it—these newspapers have declared war on anyone who is not a radical liberal. You should do nothing that might assist them financially if it can be avoided. Think twice before spending a single dime that supports those who wish to destroy you.

Apr 15, 2005 - 9:47 pm 2. Kevin P:

Roger:

They have used the marketing excuse. When the next 5% drop happens I think they will try the Mapes gambit and blame the new McCarthyism of the bloggers,You and Hewitt will be featured. They will have a hard time working in the “wilding” schtick.

Apr 15, 2005 - 10:06 pm 3. richard mcenroe:

Hmm… Robert Scheer and Ted Rall on the same page, and they wonder why LA Times circulation is dropping…

…could it be because their funny pages have more intellectual diversity than their editorial section?

Apr 15, 2005 - 10:16 pm 4. Rick Ballard:

For those contemplating David’s excellent suggestion, it’s nice to know that cancellation saves you the cost of subscription (which should be paid to your blogger of choice) and also costs the rag in question about four times the value of your subscription in lost ad revenue. That’s why the paper will offer you a “limited” subscription (in my case, a year) free after you cancel.

The papers can change the news/editorial slant in a matter of months – if they are forced to. It’s nice to see circ drops of 5% but surely we can do better. In the interest of good journalism – cancel today.

PS – Any marketing directors reading this should seriously consider ad buys on blogs. High quality readership at reasonable prices.

Apr 15, 2005 - 10:19 pm 5. Fresh Air:

It’s a curious thing, that 5.5% drop. I would have thought if you pissed off 30-50% of your readership it would be more. Perhaps the rest of the subscribers haven’t gotten around to canceling yet.

The Tribune Co. hasn’t a clue what’s going on in L.A., much less here in Chicago. The Rockefeller Republicans who run the business side are being steamrolled by the liberal newsies who control the content. “Mustn’t touch editorial. Can’t interefere with that! Just need a little embroidery on the business plan and all will be well. More advertising, yeah that’s the ticket!”

Meanwhile, their classified and display ads are being munched alive by the Internet and narrowcasting alternatives like cable. Sad to say it, but most newspapers will not be around in 25 years. There was a time when such an eventuality would have really torn me up. But that time passed in about March of 2004 when the Abu Ghraib story came out.

As a J-school student, I used to read five or more newspapers a day. Now, I really couldn’t care less if every last one of them failed. R.I.P. you bunch of chumps! You did it to yourselves.

Apr 15, 2005 - 11:10 pm 6. David Thomson:

Some readers might be a bit taken aback when I describe MSM newspapers as enemies. I am not saying that they wish to either torture or murder you. Still, they are ideologically dedicated to destroying you politically. Can this situation be reversed? Nope, I strongly believe that these media outlets are dinosaurs doomed to extinction. These journalists remind one of the proverbial frog being slowly boiled alive. They are mostly unaware of their increasing irrelevancy. Many of them are no longer youngsters and have become creatures of habits not easily broken. They are intellectually lazy and convinced of their alleged fairness and objectivity. Any complaints are dismissed as mere ravings of a right wing extremist. How is this term defined? If your views are similar to Joseph Liebermanís—then you are deemed a conservative reactionary. Iím afraid that itís time to pull the plug. You should do everything reasonable to deny them financial support.

Apr 15, 2005 - 11:34 pm 7. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

This is so classic…people don’t want to buy the product, so blame the sales organization.

Happens in a lot of companies….*but* in many companies the sales organization has enough internal power to bite back, to yell like hell and get the problems with the product addressed.

Somehow I don’t think that’s likely to be true in most large newspapers.

Apr 16, 2005 - 6:32 am 8. Charlie (Colorado):

You know, I hadn’t thought about that, Rick. I cancelled the Denver Post some years ago, not because they’re liberal but because I just wasn’t reading the damn thing; they offered to leave it on for free. After a couple of months I still wasn’t reading it, so I called them to stop it.

Then I called them again.

I finally had to threaten to call the police about the litter on my front step before they stopped it.

Apr 16, 2005 - 7:23 am 9. Anthony (Los Angeles):

I canceled my LA Times subscription a couple of years ago for three reasons: the bias was too much to take; I was reading only a couple of sections of the paper, which felt like a waste; and it was too expensive for the use I got out of it, when I could get more focused news from the Internet.

I wouldn’t dismiss “discounts” as one reason for declining revenues, however. Since canceling, I’ve received several offers to resubscribe at up to 50% off for up to six months. Occasionally, I’ve taken them up on the offer, then canceled when the rate jumped. I’m sure I can’t be the only one.

(BTW, the sections I care about are free on their web site, so why subscribe?)

Apr 16, 2005 - 7:29 am 10. des:

“Somehow I don’t think that’s likely to be true in most large newspapers.”

Of course not, photon.

Cuz, y’know, the LAT’s product is Truth. And while you can redesign the Widget, you can’t tamper with Truth.

/sarcasm/

Apr 16, 2005 - 7:41 am 11. Buddy Larsen:

The Left has done such a good job of protecting the teacher’s unions that it’s finding itself with a harvest of people who either don’t understand critical thinking, or realize how little there is of it in their captive newspapers.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:25 am 12. Peg C.:

First, every town and city should have a paper like the defunct L.A. Herald-Examiner. I still miss it! They challenged the LAT and the status quo in an important way and in spite of being lefty at the time, I adored it. We also subscribed to the LAT but I happily left it behind and I know I’ll never subscribe to another newspaper ever again. The local stuff here in the Hudson Valley is just as lousy, biased and putrid. I had to scream at one of them repeatedly to get their telemarketers to quit harassing me (the paper in question is flagrantly lefty).

When I read the piece on the LAT slippage (before I read your comments, Roger), all I could think was these people simply refuse to get it. The same way the rest of the MSM refuses to get it. I can’t believe they secretly don’t know, but admission of their true failures will never happen. Just let the internet and blogosphere steamroller right over them. I think it’s already happening and I’m cheering.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:26 am 13. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

Buddy…interesting thought…the poor performance of the public schools has led to a declining number of people who are comfortable reading large amounts of text. These people will tend to choose tv-watching or the lower forms of on-line activity in preference to newspaper or magazine reading. And those who *have* survived the public schools and still developed literacy skills are likely to feel a certain amount of hostility toward the establishment that these schools represent, and thus may turn away from the MSM.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:30 am 14. PJ:

All this spin from the Trib tells me that they are putting on a brave front until they can quietly dump the LAT.

Patterico had an open thread about “why I hate the LAT” a while back, and it was an amazing display ordinary citizens in post after post decrying that arrogant rag. Brings to mind the angry Parisians right outside Marie Antoinette’s boudoir.

Hope the Trib reads it.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:30 am 15. des:

The LAT’s basic problem is that it’s trying to sell a product aimed at a San Francisco readership pool about 400 miles south of that market base.

Los Angeles County went 63%/39% for Kerry in the 2004 election, BUT it went slightly for Schwarzenegger and the GOP in the 2003 gubernatorial recall election. And the latter vote was cast only five days after John Carroll’s paper attempted to sink Arnold’s candidacy by publishing an ill-sourced smear job.

All in all, Los Angeles County voters seem to respond moderately to moderate candidates. And the surrounding counties skew either purple to outright red. Any paper attempting to dominate the market in SoCal needs to write to its readership and leave the lefty radicalism to the Bay Area folks.

But all this is probably moot. I think I’m inclined to agree with the commenters here who have tagged the big newspapers as dinosaurs. At least as far as the physical B&W sheets you hold in your hand are concerned — that seems to be a dying paradigm in the digital age, done in by costs, lack of production speed, and space limitations, not to mention outmoded journalism models. There may yet be a way for these entities to transform and survive as some yet-to-be-figured-out form of major newsgathering and dissemination organizations. The big problem right now isn’t so much that they can’t, but that they won’t.

As long as the LAT continues to alienate the readers in its own backyard, it will sabotage any scintilla of a chance it has to make that transformation into the yet-to-be-decided paradigm, IMO. The LAT is not the actual paper it’s printed on, it is the organization itself & the following it has. If people are disgusted by the hard-copy product, then nobody’s gonna bother with the digital one, either … same ole crap.

I check in with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online several times a week because there is local news that only the PG can bring me. Ed Bouchette’s Steelers articles, mainly. (yes, I am shallow!) But also news about our PAT system, mayoral race, neverending public works projects, indie movies that local theaters, classifieds, event photos, etc. The point is that the PG has something that I as a consumer want on a fairly regular basis. The trick is for them to find a way to make it a profitable product.

The LAT has created for itself two huge problems when it might otherwise have had only one major problem (transformation of the business model in the digital age) and one smaller one (competition for eyeballs b/c of information glut, as opposed to alienated & pissed-off readers). The extent to which they continue to deny their pissing-off-the-readers problem will determine how quickly they sink before the rest of their dino pals, and the surety of the brand itself & not merely the paradigm dying for good.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:33 am 16. Kyda Sylvester:

Circulation=ad $$$. As I gradually lost interest in television and the TV Guide to which I had subscribed most of my adult life started going from the mailbox to the recycle bin, I naturally didn’t renew it. They continued to send both the magazine and invoices for a full 5 months after my subscription expired. They live and die by their circulation numbers and many periodicals now offer a second free subscription for a friend. Perhaps newspapers might try that ploy.

Friends in Orange County, who could care less about a newspaper’s ideological bent, finally cancelled their local rag (the OC Register–it got to the point that their first stop every morning was the corrections page) and started taking the LAT. After a few months they went back to the Register because the Times just didn’t carry enough local news. Perhaps the Times should stop playing to, as des says, “the San Francisco readership pool” and start paying closer attention to the rather sizeable market just south.

The next big test comes when the major dailies start charging subscription fees for their on-line editions.

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:13 am 17. Buddy Larsen:

Des is right to lament the wastage of the effort–multigenerational and until recently largely successful–to build branded news-organization names. But where’s a good lefty rag to go? The base can predict the Scheers without reading them, and at any rate need only the bumper sticker slogan to serve their discourse model.

But many see the biggest flaw as structural and outside politics, in the word “news”…the paper paper is up-to-date for, what, the hour or two after the presses roll? That was fine yesteryear when there was no choice.

Local-scene coverage is maybe worth a few bits awhile longer, but national/international news & opinion? As has been said here, tough to even give away, what with all the inky trash paper to transport going and coming.

Rick is right, smart admen will be shifting to the proven websites.

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:13 am 18. Buddy Larsen:

At what point would the gap between ad revenue and subscription revenue justify paying subscribers rather than charging them?

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:21 am 19. richard mcenroe:

Why would I pay to read online from the LA Times what I can get from Daily Kos, Indymedia and the DU for free? (OK, for a nominal price in brain cells per viewing…)

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:39 am 20. Kyda Sylvester:

It’s a curious thing, that 5.5% drop. I would have thought if you pissed off 30-50% of your readership it would be more. Perhaps the rest of the subscribers haven’t gotten around to canceling yet.

I would cancel the Sacramento Bee but my husband, who goes to the internet only to trade stocks and buy cigars, insists on having something he can carry around. And I find the grocery store ads useful (though certainly not worth the price of admission).

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:39 am 21. Buddy Larsen:

Coupons printed out off the net?

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:51 am 22. Rick Ballard:

Kyda,

What I find amazing is the the food chains don’t buy a little top slot at Roger’s Place that says:

“Check Out Our Local Sales” which when clicked leads to “Zip Code?” and on into a webpage. Is the concept too simple to be tried? It makes me curious as to what sort of kickback schemes are in play between media buyers/ad agencies and the media itself.

Apr 16, 2005 - 10:23 am 23. Kyda Sylvester:

Wow, Rick, I was just about to post the same thought. I’m sure it will come to that. You’d think marketing professionals wouldn’t be as mired in the past as they apparently are.

Grocery stores don’t really do coupons anymore, Buddy. It’s useful for me to know which local market is featuring tri-tip at half price this week, stuff like that. (Girly stuff. Women’s work.) But I certainly wouldn’t consider paying the Bee just for that information.

Apr 16, 2005 - 10:54 am 24. des:

“It’s useful for me to know which local market is featuring tri-tip at half price this week, stuff like that. (Girly stuff. Women’s work.) But I certainly wouldn’t consider paying the Bee just for that information.”

You mean they don’t dump those free weekly circulars on your doorstep?

Back when I lived in Glendale, I had one of each of the three big grocery store chains within about 2 miles of me — Ralph’s, Vons, and Lucky (which became Albertson’s). The free circulars came in very handy b/c I could see beforehand who had which bargains (like 2 for 1 boneless skinless chicken breasts) and then, in the course of a single afternoon, zip around town & get the best buys from each before hitting the TJs on Glendale Ave. and heading home.

Otherwise the circulars are filled with junk, which I promptly tossed.

The one kind of coupon the big newsies carried which doesn’t seem to be duplicated in other publications is the department store coupon — y’know, the extra 15% off the already “Super Saturday Sale.” But the dept. stores seem to be dying too, and they are some of the biggest advertisers in the papers. So the two institutions appear to be in the same boat. Cathy Seipp, IIRC, had an interesting article on this phenomenon a month or two back.

Apr 16, 2005 - 11:20 am 25. Buddy Larsen:

Maybe the web-download tickler/discounter would be a new channel, for so-called soft-goods, or even retail durables. What the hey, even boneless chickens (how do they walk, BTW?)…zip coded for sure. Selected audience (well, present company excepted, maybe).

Apr 16, 2005 - 11:56 am 26. Rick Ballard:

Buddy,

The huge one that I see is Roger’s own biz. A “What’s Playing” button leading back through Zip to the closest Regal or whatever Cineplex is closest might actually drive some sales. It’s not like ticket sales are skyrocketing.

Another one (for this blog, anyway) would be destination advertising for travel. Actually, there are tons of items that are “disposable income” linked that should be advertised on blogs.

It’s the kickback racket angle as much as anything else that’s holding blog ad revenue down.

Bribe somebody, Roger. Break the log jam.

Apr 16, 2005 - 12:26 pm 27. Kyda Sylvester:

des, I live out in what they tell me is “the country”. They don’t drop anything at my door (except for phonebooks–I seem to get those by the dozens). They don’t even deliver pizza.

The idea that Rick and Buddy are discussing is the future, I think. And the first place they will come to is blogs like Roger’s with an established readership of, apparently, relatively affluent people (I’m sure they’d want to do marketing surveys and we can all say that we earn at least high six figures). Isn’t there anybody around here who’s in this field?

Well, I’ve been procrastinating quite enough. Now I really do have to get to the store for some of that half price tri-tip.

Apr 16, 2005 - 12:59 pm 28. Buddy Larsen:

Kyda, when you get back, tell us more about that Bruce Willis dream. Remember, details.

Apr 16, 2005 - 1:16 pm 29. Buddy Larsen:

Rick, you’re right, a one-button look at zip-code happenings would ride nicely on this site among others…for local moviegoers as well as vacation-planners…same button.

$5/gal gasoline (a few years down the road?) is going to change some habits…but, what new small biz ops will it open? …besides cardiac paddles for rent at service stations.

Apr 16, 2005 - 1:40 pm 30. Rick Ballard:

Buddy,

If you could get the top twenty blogs to agree to go to an aggregate subscription service with the first year free to those who subscribe within 90 days, I’d be happy to peddle ads for a nominal percentage. Put a $20 dollar annual rate on after the first year with a revenue split based on click through and all twenty would be driving new cars. I’d bet on a minimum 200K subscriber base within the first ninety days. If the subscriber Zips broke the way I think they would, that list would be very valuable.

I would imagine that the most difficult part of setting it up would be trying to fit the egos of the top twenty into one agreement.

Apr 16, 2005 - 2:24 pm 31. triticale:

Hopefully the Milwaukee Jourinal is suffering a similar slide. I dislike the editorial page so much that I brought a post explaining this over when I moved my blog from the original bulk host. When I get telemarketing calls offering super subscription deals I make a point of explaining that I don’t read the paper because it is pro-tax and anti-gun. They never seem surprised, so I must not be the only one.

As for the local grocery ads, there is a weekly mailer which includes all of them, including the small black-owned chain which didn’t even advertise in the big newspaper. Even if I didn’t dislike the newspaper, this would reduce the need to buy it.

It may actually be that newspapers need to be left-wing in order to survive. If they weren’t, the tree-huggers would call for their elimination because of the resources they consume.

Apr 16, 2005 - 4:05 pm 32. Jim Rockford:

The Times is a bad newspaper all around.

Not only is the Editorial page biased and wrong half the time (Scheer’s column on Bill Bennett’s non-existant trip to the Pope to lobby for the Iraq War was simply embarrassing), the other parts of the paper are if anything, worse.

The LAT used to have provocative and funny sportswriters, now they are merely obnoxious and syncophantic. TJ Simers specializes in insults and cheerleading. The coverage of the Lakers dynasty meltdown has been non-existant.

On the local issues, the LAT has been simply ignoring the massive crime wave, often targeting innocent, non-gang members, sweeping through South Central Los Angeles. Outrages like a fourteen year old boy executed for not belonging to a gang are not reported, it’s left to local TV and Radio news.

On cultural issues, the LAT devotes a column every Monday on NEW YORK CITY. Why I wonder does the Times feel that it’s readers are fascinated with the goings on in NYC instead of oh say … Los Angeles?

In short, this isn’t just ideology. The paper just isn’t run very well.

Apr 16, 2005 - 8:24 pm 33. thibaud:

I love this line:

the implementation of tighter controls on field sales

This is to say that field salespersons were signing up bogus subscribers, or subscribers whose allegiance was so weak that the purchased revenues wouldn’t pass an internal quality review or audit. Given all the circulation scandals recently, and the generally shoddy nature of so much corporate accounting these days, I wonder whether the real revenues– ie, high-quality, sustainable revenues– for the LAT are significantly lower than reported.

Which would mean their cash flow position is steadily degrading, in which case it’s not impossible that the major newspapers may start to run out of cash and implode, Enron-style, in the near future.

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:49 pm 34. thibaud:

Look, newspapers simply shouldn’t exist anymore.

You want engaging, tight, crackling prose? Surf the blogs. Even if such writers are only one in a thousand, you can find dozens of them easily because as soon as you find one, you get links to several others, who link to others etc.

You want local classified ads? Go to craigslist.org.

International news? Go to the wire services for headlines and then drill deeper by going directly to onsite bloggers and/or local media on the web.

Seriously, compare Tom Friedman at his best with any of a dozen more insightful, more honest, above all more fluent and graceful writers. Myself, I’ll take Tom Wretchard any day over ham-handed that other Tom Who Screams For an Editor.

Mo Dowd? Get real. If I want cattiness I’ll go straight to Wonkette, who’s no less annoying but who offers something closer to real style and wit.

David Brooks? I don’t drink lite beer. When I’m in the mood for single malt, I drink single malt. Give me Mark Steyn anyday.

I have a sneaking feeling that, like the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, the most dangerous moment for this ossified, unreformable media empire known as the MSM is the moment at which it tries to “reform” itself. And that, like the USSR and its external empire, this media empire may collapse a lot faster than anyone expects.

Apr 16, 2005 - 9:58 pm 35. Anthony (Los Angeles):

Jim:

The LAT used to have provocative and funny sportswriters, now they are merely obnoxious and syncophantic. TJ Simers specializes in insults and cheerleading.

Argh…TJ Simers! I’d burned that jerk’s name from my brain, but you had to remind me of him! Now I need another brain-scrubbing.

Seriously, Simers is one of the reasons I stopped subscribing to the Times. Compared to real sports columnists, like the Bay Area’s Glenn Dickey, Simers is an embarrassment.

Apr 17, 2005 - 9:23 am 36. Buddy Larsen:

Thibaud may have hit the bacillus on its head…cronyism, in full view of an increasingly contemptuous clientele, did-in the Soviets and may be doing-in the big MSMpires. What else but fealty to the next desk up keeps all these second and third-rate writers employed?

Apr 17, 2005 - 11:57 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: