Comments on: Marc Canter’s Strategy for the Plain Dealer http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/marc-canters-strategy-for-the-plain-dealer Locally owned and operated from Cleveland, OH since 2002 Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:07:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Marc Canter http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/marc-canters-strategy-for-the-plain-dealer/comment-page-1#comment-3616 Marc Canter Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:54:00 +0000 http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/marc-canters-strategy-for-the-plain-dealer#comment-3616 Hey MIDWESTLIFE The point of my post was to make a few points which you have ignored. 1. Business is business. The Tribune got taken down by an idiot who lost his shirt. He claimed he'd get the Tribune profitable and he never mentioned HOW. 2. I tried to set forth in my strategy an approach which leveraged and built on the credibility and history of the Plain Dealer. By seeing itself as a brand more than just a newspaper - it might have a chance of surviving. 3. But it won't survive as "just" a newspaper. I hope you realize that and that I'm not saying anything new. So here's teh question: "do you want the Plain Dealer to die or is it about saving newspapers?" 4. Cause the former is a possibility while the later is a lost cause. 5. Now maybe my strategy is the wrong strategy - but sitting around griping about the high costs of quality professional investigative journalism and yearning for the days of the 4th estate - I'm afraid to say - is a waste of time. IMHO Hey MIDWESTLIFE

The point of my post was to make a few points which you have ignored.

1. Business is business. The Tribune got taken down by an idiot who lost his shirt. He claimed he’d get the Tribune profitable and he never mentioned HOW.

2. I tried to set forth in my strategy an approach which leveraged and built on the credibility and history of the Plain Dealer. By seeing itself as a brand more than just a newspaper – it might have a chance of surviving.

3. But it won’t survive as “just” a newspaper. I hope you realize that and that I’m not saying anything new. So here’s teh question: “do you want the Plain Dealer to die or is it about saving newspapers?”

4. Cause the former is a possibility while the later is a lost cause.

5. Now maybe my strategy is the wrong strategy – but sitting around griping about the high costs of quality professional investigative journalism and yearning for the days of the 4th estate – I’m afraid to say – is a waste of time.

IMHO

]]> By: MIDWESTWIFE http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/marc-canters-strategy-for-the-plain-dealer/comment-page-1#comment-3615 MIDWESTWIFE Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:06:16 +0000 http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2009/marc-canters-strategy-for-the-plain-dealer#comment-3615 I don't have a problem with copyright for newspapers that delays competitors (eg tv and radio) from using their work product for a few days. The Plain Dealer spends a few hundred or thousand man-hours on a story, and the local tv news puts it up the next day, so why buy the paper if you can see it for free on local tv. Ditto internet sites like Huffingtonpost that almost steal others work product in the 24 hour newscycle. The PD and many other newspapers have an unfortunate habit of running a story once, and then letting it drop if nobody notices. I don't want their copyright protection be used to let a story die. (LA Times used to do amazing long term stories until a short=sighted investment banker bought them and gutted them.) Some of the internet stars (eg TalkingPointsMemo.com) have a business model that follows up on great local stories that died. An important source for TPM is frustrated local reporters whose stories didn't click but who think there is more story or a broader story there. The politicization of the US Attorneys at the justice department was one such story. It wasn't a big story in any one area ("Our local USAG was fired for no reason. This feels weird.") but someone (TPM) put all the pieces together. I want to help local papers survive. but I would not support any change in copyright laws that would allow a local publisher who didn't want to spend additional resources to follow up on a story to kill it because they have the copyright on the initial story but make the business decision not to follow up at the local level. I don’t have a problem with copyright for newspapers that delays competitors (eg tv and radio) from using their work product for a few days. The Plain Dealer spends a few hundred or thousand man-hours on a story, and the local tv news puts it up the next day, so why buy the paper if you can see it for free on local tv. Ditto internet sites like Huffingtonpost that almost steal others work product in the 24 hour newscycle.

The PD and many other newspapers have an unfortunate habit of running a story once, and then letting it drop if nobody notices. I don’t want their copyright protection be used to let a story die. (LA Times used to do amazing long term stories until a short=sighted investment banker bought them and gutted them.)

Some of the internet stars (eg TalkingPointsMemo.com) have a business model that follows up on great local stories that died. An important source for TPM is frustrated local reporters whose stories didn’t click but who think there is more story or a broader story there. The politicization of the US Attorneys at the justice department was one such story. It wasn’t a big story in any one area (“Our local USAG was fired for no reason. This feels weird.”) but someone (TPM) put all the pieces together.

I want to help local papers survive. but I would not support any change in copyright laws that would allow a local publisher who didn’t want to spend additional resources to follow up on a story to kill it because they have the copyright on the initial story but make the business decision not to follow up at the local level.

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