Category: Newspapers
Wednesday, 27 September 2006
Monday, 10 July 2006
Maybe My Star Tribune Subscription Is Paying For Itself
Came back from vacation with 2 Sunday papers on my doorstep. Inspiring a real good conversation Sunday afternoon with my sister, Kari. She’s just that bit younger than me that newspapers don’t exist in her world. She doesn’t read them and she was nice enough to listen to me vent.
As always, the writing in the Strib isn’t fantastic – I even read this week’s cover story (laws destroying local meth production encouraged importation from Mexico), though not much more. If the stories don’t read like simplistic editorial they read like thinly veiled advertisements – wrapped in obvious advertisements.
For all the effort it takes to publish and deliver the paper to me on a weekly basis – sure seems like it’d have a much higher cover price than $1.75 – (it costs me that to move the paper from the front step to the recycling bin).
What if the Strib wasn’t 99.9% ad subsidized? Would I pay $10-20 / week to have the Star Tribune delivered with amazing writing? Writing you’d pick up on a Wednesday to re-read, or continue reading. Writing that provided complexity, calls to action, analysis, and recognized that the newspaper itself is simply one piece of my information resources.
As I’m imagining this world where the Minneapolis Star Tribune is more like the Harvard Business Review, Kari picks up a stack of coupons Jen clipped earlier.
$0.55 here, $0.60 there, another $0.20, eventually enough to cover the paltry cover price.
Is this all I should be expecting from the Strib? Cause, even the St. Anthony Bulletin‘s writer makes the police log an entertaining read…and that’s a free paper…free like public radio is free.
Sunday, 2 April 2006
That Giant Buzzing Sound You Hear is Me-dia Filtering and Aggregating
Fellow local me-dia mogul Chuck Olsen got some nice press in the Sunday Strib this week.
A nice write up, and I’m glad Chuck got the press – he deserves it. Afterwards though, I had the distinct feeling that the Strib, in their haste to cover every base, actually missed the interesting bits (that you can and should do this too). I’ve had this feeling (completely missing the story) frequently as of late with traditional media (their-dia?). Enough that Jen’s tired of me commenting on it.
Thankfully, Jeff Jarvis is more articulate in describing this emptiness than I. Here’s some choice quotes from his latest must-read post, Not Quite, Times;
“The problem is that [traditional media publishers] still think the internet is something the powerful use to affect the rest of us. Wrong. It’s what the rest of us use to affect the powerful.”
“…politicians never owned politics and the businesses never owned the market and journalists never owned the news. The people do.”
The Strib delivers readers to advertisers in exchange for a printing and distribution. There are no ads on this site (either that, or it’s full of ads). This post is as much ‘note to self’ as ‘something interesting to share’.
Existing media outlets, like the Strib and the Utne, are in the same business I am – filtering and aggregation. I aggregate my filters and redistribute, my filters aggregate theirs and redistribute. Same for them. How about you?
Sunday, 19 February 2006
Tasteless Art Affecting the Tastebuds at Holy Land Deli
I was introduced to the Doner (Gyro or Kabob) during my time in Germany. The Turkish immigrants brought it with them. Aside from the thinly-sliced lamb, the rest of the ingredients were German; cabbage inside stuffed in a quarter of the circular flatenbrot.
In Minneapolis, there’s only one place to get a good gyro – Holy Land Deli over at 2513 Central Avenue NE. They stuff the pitas to their breaking point as they should. My personal favorite is their lamb kabob with hummus. While you wait, admire their grocery – great selection of olives, teas, and meats you won’t find at Cub or Rainbow.
Via this week’s Sunday Strib, I read Holy Land’s owner Majdi Wadi has banned all products made in Denmark until the Danish government apologizes for something tasteless the Danish free press published months ago.
I’ve seen the cartoons. If you haven’t, just ask some angst-ridden teenager to draw some up for you. Cliché-ridden, cheap, and heavy-handed.
From what I glean from On the Media, the newspapers in the Middle East are controlled by their respective governments. In that environment, putting the blame on a national government makes complete sense. I’m not sure what editorial control the Danish government exerts over the press, but I suspect it’s nil. It’d be convenient if the US Government could simply apologize for Fox News or insipid letters to the editor. But that’s not how things work here in the US or in northern Europe.
I’m not sure what Danish-made products the Holy Land sold, I haven’t purchased anything other than lunch and olive oil from them, and the Strib article didn’t list them by name.
Is that list offensive?
Wadi’s decision to ban Danish-made products would seem better directed if the Danish manufacturers had advertising or in some other way financed the newspaper in question.
Since that’s most likely not the case, the Strib article – just like this post – is an advertisement for the Holy Land Deli (mmmm tasty gyros). Would you like a Carlsberg to wash it down?
Sunday, 8 January 2006
What To Do with 10 Sears Ads?
Sunday Star Tribune seemed a little heavy for a boring, post-holiday, January weekend. As I culled out the handful of things I actually care about;
- comics
- big box electronics ads
- “signature” – maybe there’s something interesting this week
- “money + business” – maybe there’s something interesting this week
- the Satellite radio article in “arts & entertainment” – complete fluff piece. Aside from reading like an ad for Howard Stern. I hope the Strib got some ad dollars for the article. More on that at the Work Better blog.
I also found:
- 2 duplicate Office Depot ads
- 2 duplicate PartyAmerica ads
- 5 duplicate CompUSA ads
- and yes, 10 duplicate Sears ads
I don’t know how advertisers pay the Strib and measure its usefulness, but this can’t be helpful. Plus, I didn’t page through any of them. So, doubly un-helpful.
Monday, 31 October 2005
MNSpeak is the New City Pages
The Star Tribune’s Jon Trevlin writes a FUD-mongering piece on “the City Pages’ parent’s possible merger“. In his first 2 sentences there’s; an ‘if’, a ‘may’, and two ‘mights’.
As a sign of things to come, Rex at MNSpeak pointed me to the online article. I read MNSpeak 2-3 times a day, during my regular NetNewsWire skimming. Don’t remember the last time I picked up a City Pages. I do remember that the last time I did, the entire second half was page after page of phone sex ads. Didn’t inspire me to pick it up again – no matter the investigative cover articles.
We went to a movie this weekend – historically, we would have gone to Citypages.com to check their listings. This time we decided their site was far to difficult to navigate and we hit imdb.com instead. Ended up at the Hopkins $2 theater for the Wedding Crashers. BTW – It’s one of the best movie theater-going experiences I’ve had in a long long time. The staff was friendly, the seats comfortable, the audience quiet, the tickets reasonably priced.
If my current habits are any indication, as long as the City Pages is a printed publication – it doesn’t matter who owns them. As long as they have a printing press, MNSpeak.com will eat their lunch, and review it.
Sunday, 9 October 2005
Star Tribune Re-arranging Deck Chairs
This week the Star Tribune launches their much (internally) debated redesign. It’s been previously dissed by City Pages and MNSpeak.
This morning, I read the special 8 page pullout outlining the “new features” and the editor’s comments on it. I’m less than impressed and – even with 3 cups of coffee – still un-enthused.
Here’s a short list of the major innovations we’ll see next week and my view on them:
- Lileks off Sunday, moved to every other day. A good thing. Since I don’t think he’s very good and I get the Sunday paper, this is perfect
- “Variety” renamed “Source”, “Signature”, “Stupid”, “Sucks”
- Masthead, now with more serifs, wider columns, more bullets, easier to skim. As an ex-graphic designer I can confidently say they spent too much money on the logo redesign and their new skin.
- Oh, and something about writers having the same stories online as in the printed piece. That’s a good thing. Hopefully this will give reporters the opportunity to publish more interesting articles, in varying degrees of depth. You know, the whole ‘go niche’ / ‘long tail’ thing.
Now that I’m done shredding the redesign, here’s a couple of actual innovations I’d like to see from newspaper land:
- Customized dead-tree edition: only the sections I want from the columnists I like. In my world, I’d be without the Sports, Travel, and Classifieds. This means fewer pages printed, fewer pages delivered, and fewer pages recycled.
- Provide access to archives for free online.
- Write above a 4th grade level. I’d like that very much.
- Include URLs in the newspaper edition to continue the story online. Links to the story itself, the reporter’s sources, and competitive coverage. This means embracing and acknowledging the internet exists. (That’s where younger – and older – readers are going)
Until then, the Star Tribune is simply re-arranging the deck chairs of a sinking industry. Giving someone with a few dollars a huge opportunity to redesign the industry…not just the paper.
Sunday, 11 September 2005
What I Read in the Sunday Paper – Sept 11, 2005
I started ignoring the Star Tribune’s OpEx section almost immediately after we signed up for the Sunday home delivery. I was expecting well thought through logical arguments rather than the ‘look-a-shiny-thing-that-supports-my-position’ ignorance so popular on television “news”. But, like I said, I don’t read it.
Today, I started reading the headline. Half way into the article, I realized I read this before. Of course, it’s the Thomas Friedman piece I read 4 days ago online. Yeah, it’s a good piece. But um, this is the Minneapolis Star Tribune not the New York Times. If I wanted to read the New York Times, I’d read the New York Times. Christ. I’m looking to the Strib for a local take on events, not a repeat of what I’ve already read from East Coasters.
Here’s the rest of what I paid attention to this Sunday, September 11, 2005:
- Money & Business; skimmed the headline – on how Katrina won’t effect our economy as much as 9/11. Read the first half of the data recovery story. That was actually interesting – small local company recovering the hard drives damaged in the Lake George flood. Comment & question to the Strib M&B editor; the caption and photo in Ross Levin’s article made no sense. Should I expect a photo of last original German-made VW Beetle every time you need to quickly fill column inches?
- Variety; Skimmed headlines, nothing seemed very interesting. Read horoscope – something about being more mature about money.
- Arts & Entertainment; Read the callouts on Green Day and the upcoming SoundUnseen festival. Reminds me, Andrew Gruhn‘s putting together a podcast for it, keep an eye on PodcastMN for it.
- Metro; Read the profile of mayoral candidate Farheen Hakeem. I’m glad she’s running. It’s good to have a young, Muslim, Green party, woman running against a sea of middle-age white men. Since I’m not in Mpls proper, I first heard about Farheen from Peter Idusogie on Inside Minnesota Politics.
- Comics; Calvin & Hobbes (I agree with Mark, it’s good to have Calvin back, even in reruns), Get Fuzzy, Doonesbury, Dilbert, For Better or Worse, Close to Home, Boondocks, 9 Chickweed Lane (clever, real clever)
- Opinion; The headline said it was going to compare Minneapolis and Vancouver, cool. It didn’t (double checked to make sure I wasn’t in the Travel section). Paged through, nothing else seemed competent.
- Best Buy weekly ad; looks like I have all the electronics I need right now
- Circuit City weekly ad; huh, DVD-R’s for $.25 each. Now if it only didn’t take forever to burn a DVD.
Looks like I missed this good article on Edina Rep. Ron Erhardt wanting to actually solve transportation problems. Thanks to the Minnesota Politics Guru for pointing it out. This bloggers-as-mass-media-filter seems to be working real well.
Sunday, 31 July 2005
What I Read in the Sunday Paper
Jen and I have subscribed to a Sunday paper as long as I can remember. In Chicago, it was the Chicago Tribune, here in Minnesota on the west side of Highway 280, it’s the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Leisurely reading the paper over doughnuts and coffee is a tradition I’m quite fond of.
In an effort to determine what I’m getting in return for my $1.25 per week, I offer the following list of what I paid attention to this Sunday, July 31, 2005:
- Money & Business; paged through, nothing interesting. Ironically, I’ve found it less compelling since they added Wall Street Journal articles.
- Variety; Only read horoscope – predicts a decent day. For sure, I’m having powered doughnuts for breakfast.
- Arts & Entertainment; Fringe Festival starts this week. Right, I added the Fringe Fest podcast to PodcastMN
- Metro; paged through, nothing interesting
- Comics; Opus, Get Fuzzy, Doonesbury. Looks like all the comics are larger this week. They probably pulled a couple and didn’t replace them.
- Opinion; The headline said it was going to compare Minneapolis and Vancouver, cool. It didn’t (double checked to make sure I wasn’t in the Travel section). Paged through, nothing else seemed competent.
- Best Buy weekly ad; Nice price on a 300GB hard drive
- Circuit City weekly ad; Nice price on a 1GB SD card.
- CompUSA weekly ad; Nice prices on USB flash drives
- Office Depot weekly ad; Color laser printers are falling in price nicely.
I actually feel pretty good about the time paging through the weekly flyers. The newsprint, on the other hand, left me unfulfilled (could also be the doughnuts). Nearly all the newspaper articles I’ve read in the past year left me wondering a) where’s the story? or b) where’s the editor?
Did I get $1.25 worth. For sure, and I’ve easily ignored 50% of the paper – and most of the locally written articles. I’m even cool advertisers subsidizing the remaining costs. I make a commitment each Sunday morning to this local paper, it’d be nice if I got more out of it than hitting refresh on my RSS reader.