Comments on: S.F. Chronicle latest paper to undergo deep cuts http://www.lostremote.com/2007/05/30/sf-chronicle-latest-paper-to-undergo-deep-cuts/ Where TV Finds the Future Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:32:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: John Proffitt http://www.lostremote.com/2007/05/30/sf-chronicle-latest-paper-to-undergo-deep-cuts/#comment-336194 John Proffitt Thu, 31 May 2007 09:18:43 +0000 http://www.lostremote.com/2007/05/31/sf-chronicle-latest-paper-to-undergo-deep-cuts/#comment-336194 Whoops... that's "buy" not "by" in the first line! Whoops… that’s “buy” not “by” in the first line!

]]> By: John Proffitt http://www.lostremote.com/2007/05/30/sf-chronicle-latest-paper-to-undergo-deep-cuts/#comment-336193 John Proffitt Thu, 31 May 2007 09:17:41 +0000 http://www.lostremote.com/2007/05/31/sf-chronicle-latest-paper-to-undergo-deep-cuts/#comment-336193 I don't by the idea that the business model of newspapers are broken. There's still money to be made with news as a gathering content force. It's just not enough to drive a publicly-traded company's stock ever higher, which is what the nuts on Wall Street expect. Consider if you took the Chronicle and made it into a nonprofit, or a hybrif for-profit and nonprofit business with different divisions handling different aspects of the company. You could make plenty of money for the owners to live comfortably and serve the community at the same time. Plus, if the news section is under nonprofit auspices, they can work very independently of advertiser interests and focus on the real work of journalism. Do newspapers need to adopt modified models, think differently, act differently? Sure. But I don't think the whole notion of reporting news + advertising and/or community support is dead. Even print isn't dead yet, if it ever will be. But I would agree in general that the Chronicle, or any other publicly-traded newspaper company, is not a sufficiently profitable business to make stockholders rich like Google shareholders. Newspapers, or news media organizations, have to refocus on public service rather than stock prices. I don’t by the idea that the business model of newspapers are broken. There’s still money to be made with news as a gathering content force. It’s just not enough to drive a publicly-traded company’s stock ever higher, which is what the nuts on Wall Street expect.

Consider if you took the Chronicle and made it into a nonprofit, or a hybrif for-profit and nonprofit business with different divisions handling different aspects of the company. You could make plenty of money for the owners to live comfortably and serve the community at the same time. Plus, if the news section is under nonprofit auspices, they can work very independently of advertiser interests and focus on the real work of journalism.

Do newspapers need to adopt modified models, think differently, act differently? Sure. But I don’t think the whole notion of reporting news + advertising and/or community support is dead. Even print isn’t dead yet, if it ever will be.

But I would agree in general that the Chronicle, or any other publicly-traded newspaper company, is not a sufficiently profitable business to make stockholders rich like Google shareholders. Newspapers, or news media organizations, have to refocus on public service rather than stock prices.

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