One-Paper Town?

Chicago is coming dangerously close to becoming a one-paper town. Chicago financier Jim Tyree has made a $25 million offer, but union members say concessions needed to seal the deal are too much.

If things don't change soon, Chicago will become a one-paper town. And that's shame. Lots of good thinking people left the Chicago Sun-Times when Murdoch took over, and they never came back even though that was years ago.

But still the Sun-Times, small, scrappy finds its way to stories that nobody else seems to find. Case in point the recent pension stories or a lovely piece that Dave Roeder did just today on re-development plans in Englewood.

Neither paper is what it used to be, but we still need them both.

Another One Bites the Dust

One more publication, The Printed Blog, closed up shop this week. This new kind of newprint publication--which compiled posts from local blogs in a printed format-- was, in my opinion, a novel idea. But due to lack of outside investment capital, The Printed Blog folded. And alas, bloggers will continue to find their audiences online, and not in newsprint.

WindyCitizen Deal With CBS2 Website May Be Wave of the Future

CBS2 now prominently hosts a feed from WindyCitizen on the front page of the local section of its web site.

This is a good example of how MSM (mainstream media) is creating partnerships with smaller players to obtain content that they don't have the resources to gather.

WindyCitizen is a "reader-edited" news site where anyone can recommend, rate and discuss local news.

WindyCitizen gives CBS2 a granularity to their coverage that they can't get on their own, and is a good example of how organizations can work their way up the media food chain by posting on sites like WindyCitizen.

How Well Do the Media Cover NonProfit Issues?

NP Communicator, a blog published by Community Media Workshop (CMW), is conducting research on the future of local news in Chicago. The chart on the right is from a survey of selected keywords in Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times news articles over the years. (Click on the chart to enlarge it and see the keywords)

Tribune Cuts: Naming Names

Chicago Reader's Michael Miner has names of the 53 cuts at Tribune.

Street papers growing

According to an article in the New York Times:

Newspapers produced and sold by homeless people in dozens of American cities are flourishing even as the deepening recession endangers conventional newspapers. At many of them, circulation is growing, along with the sales forces dispatched to sell the papers to passers-by.

According to the article, the current recession has brought new and, in some cases, highly skilled vendors to the industry, and the "offbeat" coverage is attracting new interest.

So don't forget to buy that copy of Streetwise when you see someone selling here in Chicago.

Chicago Fosters New Media Models

You may have received a copy of The Printed Blog at your neighborhood El stop. Another new Chicago news aggregator called Newser, is also trying to engineer a new financial model for delivering the news. According to the Sun-Times, this new company is employing 11 full-time employees (note: the article doesn't say "reporters"). Like a lot of new, news sources, it searches far and wide for content developed by others. One more news "source" that is attempting to make money by purveying a product paid for by others. It can't work in the long run. If the people who create high quality content can't make a living or profit by doing it, they it's just going to go away.

Part of the Problem?

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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

I was rooting for this spokesperson for the newspaper industry, but I ended up cringing

The Danger of a Paperless News Media

At a time when the President consistently urges us to topple the barriers that divide the nation, Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times claims that the demise of traditional newspapers is reinforcing the ideological segregation of America.