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I heard about this last night, and notified some of my fellow bloggers about it. I was glad to see Jen did her research and posted about it;
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the business model of the print media needed to change in order to survive. Newspapers are losing money. Not a big surprise and I, for one, don’t think they can blame it totally on the digital explosion. Have you looked at the local newspaper lately? The actual pages of news have been reduced to a couple of thin pages. The local news content leaves something to be desired with articles lacking investigative depth while basically regurgitating bland information with no hard line questioning.
This has got me thinking about my own blogging, and my dependence on other media sources (though I don’t make a penny from blogging and volunteer my time as a public service, as most bloggers do). I want to depend more on public information (which I have done 75% of the time) and my South DaCola foot soldiers. What am I saying? I don’t want to depend on the media to send me leads anymore, I want them to be checking my site for leads (well they already do). A good example is this blog post that finally made the newspaper today.
I guess it’s time to pull up the boot straps.
Old media points to scapegoats when they should be looking at their own outdated model. Look at the record business – they truly believe that if downloading disappeared today they’d be back to mid-90’s sales. While downloads does have an effect it’s miniscule compared to the cumulative effects of dozens of other reasons. The movie industry is now playing that same game since nobody is buying DVD’s and Blu-rays.
The Argus charging for online content is ridiculous. The tradeoff for the small amount of income it will produce is the number of readers who will never again interact with their company.
BTW, if the problem really is that the local TV stations are “stealing” their stories, why not just sue them for copyright infringement?
I don’t trust the Argus for news because when they offer opinion they don’t use facts to back them up. I’d pay $ to read Ellis’ writing. Capitalism is a real tough pill to swallow but if they did harder journalism I’d be more loyal to them. The Argus has become a cheerleader for this Mayor except they’re a cheerleader that kills lots of trees. Ellis should start his own on-line paper. I’d pay to read that!
Scott, thank you for all the time and effort that you put into South DaCola……..
Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2012!!
CR
Yes, thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into this blog. I’m a faithful reader and find you more trustworthy than the Argus Leader – who has become little more than an echo chamber for the mayor, the governor and KELO. But that’s redundant.
This Red Light Camera issue was my first jump into waters that just flat pissed me off. I never got a ticket, but had heard about yellow light timing issues from a call in to the talk of Sioux Falls, KSOO and it’s favorite conservative apologist..rick knobe. I googled this, and googled that, and the next thing you know…I realized the people of Sioux Falls and anyone else who drives in this town were being scammed….by a fricking camera!?!?
From the argus…
In May 2002, a consultant analyzed 10 intersections in the city and recorded 1,409 instances of drivers running red lights over a 90-hour period…..And while the cameras generated more than 34,000 tickets, they were never intended to raise money, Barthel said.
I’ve read that consultants study…many times…trust me. Be assured of this. That red light camera was about revenue. If it was truly about safety, ALL they had to do was adjust yellow times for ACCEPTED speeds. But they did not. In fact, at several of those intersections involved in that study…yellow times when decreased when they should have been increased.
Mr. Ellis. Read that study. Absorb it….then report back. Til then, the Argus is a joke.
This issue is how I found this blog. Thank you Scott, and Merry Christmas to you, and Theresa, and Cheryl, and Kermit, and Scott Hudson, and Cory from Madville, and Jennifer and her Musings, and I.L. Weiderman, and Dan Dailey. You are ALL true patriots.
Thanks, Poly!
Yes, Thank you Poly. I hope the New Year will bring all kinds of fun surprises 🙂
Newspapers have become more a soap opera rag. TV news is sensationalizm without honest reporting. Ellis is a good reporter but Im sure he gets edited from what he’d really like to say. Misguided or controlled media becomes not so true. Both sides comes from blog. How do you bring masses out from cocoons and reality TV into the real world?
Not to knock Jen’s research, but the Chicago Sun-Times is not a Gannett newspaper.
I got confirmation today that the AL is looking to go after the TV stations for stealing content, not blogs. Which is a relief. I am going to still stick to my new year’s resolution though and try to create as much of my own content as possible. And as always, I am always looking for contributors 🙂
Jill, maybe you should comment on Jen’s site. But thanks for the correction, to Jen’s site, on my site 🙂
I did, Scott, but thanks. I figured some of your readers wouldn’t go back there to see that correction. And to be honest, I’m never sure I’m doing these things right & if they’ll show up at all!
It seems the argus would need to file a lawsuit daily, if they want to claim the tv stations are stealing their stories (which they are). This has been going on since the beginning of tv, so I don’t think they’d have much of a case.
Whenever anyone says ‘new direction’ it reminds me of… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTPQVOWCiU
scott – would agree that 99.99% of the time, news is news, and proving they are actually ‘stealing’ news is a little silly. But I will say I can count at least two times that KELO practically lifted, script verbatim, a story from the AL. I even compared the two in word, and not much was changed. It wasn’t an AP story and there was NO credit to the AL.
A part of me supports them when shit like that happens, but I am also of the school of getting information out there. Besides, news isn’t literature, it’s news.