Philadelphia Inquirer to hold stories for paper
Cory Bergman August 7th, 2008
That’s right, the Inquirer has sent out a memo to its staff requiring reporters and editors to hold non-breaking stories for the newspaper. “Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts,” explains managing editor Mike Leary. “What that means is that we won’t post those stories online until they’re in print.” Leary says that breaking stories will remain first on the web. Earlier this week, there was this story in Editor & Publisher:
“The owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News is facing more debt troubles, according to a Standard & Poors report that says the company has received a forbearance agreement from creditors through Sept. 10.”
Sounds like a big opportunity for the Philly TV stations.
Says Jeff Jarvis: “What the hell are they thinking in Philadelphia?”
9 Comments Add your own
1. charley | August 8th, 2008 at 1:10 am
It’s just so backwards. To me, the subtext of that is, “We have no idea how to make the Internet work for us, so we’re not even going to try.”
2. Jason DeRusha | August 8th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I do think newspapers should be thinking about what value-add can they provide to provide to subscribers. This wouldn’t be the way I’d go about it, though. Especially because most people don’t read the paper cover-to-cover before they go to work. I’m not sure what holding this stuff back does (other than prevent TV stations from stealing paper stories in time for the 11pm news).
I’d rather see richer RSS feeds for subscribers, e-mailed versions of coupons, etc.
3. JC | August 8th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Still not going to buy your paper….
4. Don Day | August 8th, 2008 at 7:06 am
YES! This is exactly the right move for newspapers. I hope every single newspaper editor in the country adopts this bold strategy right away.
And no, that’s not sarcasm…. it’s the best thing that could ever happen… to TV sites.
5. tdc | August 8th, 2008 at 7:46 am
“the battle for the local web”
i lr-ove it!
6. Gorman | August 8th, 2008 at 8:02 am
For a second, I thought I was viewing an archived version of LR through the WaybackMachine.
7. Brink | August 8th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Welcome to 1999.
8. Rob | August 8th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I’m neither a newspaper editor nor do I have a business degree but in my completely ill-informed opinion this still sounds like a really bad idea. I mean to actively decide against giving the consumers what they want by holding content from the web in the vain hope people will wait 12 hours for a paper instead of getting the content from a Philly TV station website right now … it just sounds … desperate.
9. Anonymous | August 8th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
1999 was great to Prince.
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