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Ask HN: Won't Local Newspapers Still Survive?
Hacker News has been REALLY busy lately with all the noise about newspapers 'dying'. However, local newspapers seem to be doing quite well. I opened up my local publication this morning and saw it was filled with advertisements and seemed quite healthy. I can't imagine a day when Mom and Dad would ever stop cutting out pictures of little Jimmy playing soccer. It seems to be part of our upbringing. Is it the same for you?
- trickjarrett 17y agoDepends on your definition of Local. Most City newspapers are owned by conglomerates, the Orlando Sentinel is part of the Chicago Tribune and as a result is bankrupt. We're all waiting to see what they do but it's not doing well afaik. As for the local newspapers that aren't part of the bigger machines, yes they should fair just fine so long as they keep costs down and adopt to the online markets available to them.
- noodle 17y agohyperlocal newspapers will always do well, but that is because the bar is effectively lower for them. where i grew up, the local newspaper was run by one person, and it wasn't their only job because the profits couldn't sustain them. content was always coming in and was a self-sustaining cycle -- stories about the little league, usually submitted by the little league itself or a coach or something, will bring in eyes of the league participants to the paper. they'll probably always be profitable, but they won't be churning out jobs.
- wglb 17y agoMine as well. I think there are two people there. So just wondering--if this goes in reverse, is there a space for extremely local newspapers that cover just a tiny portion of a city or suburb? Implying that economies of scale are not scaling anymore.
- noodle 17y agoi think that its possible. i don't believe that many of the local papers are run as effectively as possible -- most are probably not run by business-oriented people, but by people who are popular inside the community (or at least, ours was and so were the ones in the general area). they probably do scale, it is probably more likely that the same problems we're seeing with larger papers are happening with smaller ones. they're not keeping themselves modern with respect to technology and business practices.
- stcredzero 17y agostories about the little league, usually submitted by the little league itself or a coach or something Another anecdote that indicates journalism is only profitable as aggregation of Public Relations? Even at the hyper-local level!
- knieveltech 17y agoLocal dailies that run a combination of world, national, state, and local news are hosed. That segment of the industry is in a tailspin. Ad revenue slips, then a round of layoffs to try to cap costs. Fewer people means fewer articles, shoddy reporting, or both. Quality of the paper declines. Ad revenue slips, then a round of layoffs to try to cap costs...