Discuss Detroit » Archives - July 2008 » Read It and weep (For the Free Press) « Previous Next »
Top of pageBottom of page

Southwestmap
Member
Username: Southwestmap

Post Number: 1135
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I am rooting for the Freep to winn a Pulitzer for the contribution that the paper made to exposure of Kilpatrick public corruption. It was brilliant and monumental. Just when I am congratulating the Freep they go and do something humiliating like this:

http://www.freep.com/article/2 0081118/FEATURES/81118050

"Shoppers, tell us metro Detroit’s cleanest restrooms"

The editors even make a little potty joke.

Soon, to follow the pattern, the editors will be giving us a little list of "tips" for using public restrooms, as one Saturday they admonished readers to make a family breakfast that week-end and told us all how to fry bacon!!!!

Please, dear Free Press editors - get some shame.
Top of pageBottom of page

Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 3684
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

See, Southwest: This is the FUTURE of journalism. No expensive investigatory journalism, no hard-hitting exposés of the abuses of power. The Free Press is going to do a bit of that, maybe, but they're going to focus on LIFESTYLE stories! You're not a CITIZEN; you're a SHOPPER!

C'mon, don't you want to know how other people feel about restroom hygiene? Or how about what people do to get their cups and bowls to stack up neatly in their cupboards? Or how they felt when they first started going bald? That's the important public purpose our newspapers are going to fulfill.

(Then they wonder why fewer and fewer people read them anymore. It's because their focus-group fantasies of what readers want are fictions.)
Top of pageBottom of page

Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 2091
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Chicago Sun-Times had a feature story this summer about whether the Sox or the Cubs had the "hottest fans."
Top of pageBottom of page

Detmsp
Member
Username: Detmsp

Post Number: 35
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oh Detroitnerd, you have solved the newspaper industry's problems!!!! Someone stop the presses, we need to print this! The newspaper industry is saved! Declining readership has nothing to do with young people preferring other (free) mediums for their news, such as internet, TV, etc. It's all about a couple of lifestyle stories!

Phew, that was close! And here the entire industry thought it was going to go under
Top of pageBottom of page

Bigb23
Member
Username: Bigb23

Post Number: 2877
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Everything is mostly fluff now. Give us a daily consumer activist column like the old "Contact 10" in the Free Press/News. Upscale restaurant and boutique reviews are no help to me when I struggle with the basic cost of existing.
Top of pageBottom of page

Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 3686
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detmsp: I must have touched quite a painful nerve for you to release that flood of sarcasm. :-)

Oh, sure, people are reading more online and on television because they don't want to read a newspaper. Whatever. I'm sure newspapers trying to lure them with bland, short stories about lifestyle are going to save the day. Trust me, you try to get readers to buy your newspaper by dumbing it down, you'll fail.

Would producing a bombshell newspaper filled with true investigative journalism work? Would it win the respect of even a jaded readership in metro Detroit?

First it would have to be tried, Detmsp. That hasn't been done since the JOA.
Top of pageBottom of page

Daddeeo
Member
Username: Daddeeo

Post Number: 303
Registered: 09-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Whatever sells papers is the golden rule these days. Old fashioned journalism and other high falutin' stuff takes a back seat. Let's face it, there's a lot of competition from TV, radio and the net for consumers to chose from.
I prefer to moosy through a paper and get in depth coverage of a story but others like a quick wrap up.
Top of pageBottom of page

Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 1701
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 3:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The journalism business is going the way of the music business, and for the same reason: their product has been devalued. It's a little worse, though: music is only "free" because so many people are willing to steal it; newspapers are free because the papers themselves choose to put all their stories on their free web sites.

I like to read newspapers, and unlike Sarah Palin I can name a great many of them, in lots of cities. There are still a few really good ones. But why would I go to a newsstand and pay $4.00 for a pile of local and out-of-town papers when I can read all the same stories at home without paying a cent?

OK, granted, newspapers get most of their revenue from advertising, but I doubt advertisers are willing to pay as much for on-line advertisements as for those in the actual, physical newspaper.

Nonsense such as the kind of fluff story referred to in the first post on this thread only make things worse, and things are bad enough already.

The internet per se is an interesting substitute. On the one hand, there is a lot more information about current events online than you could hope to stuff into a newspaper; on the other hand there is a lot of unedited crap which would never make it into a credible news source but which takes on a life of its own in cyberspace. (See, for instance, Phillip Berg's crusade to "prove" P-E Obama isn't a citizen.) And the online journalists, with few exceptions, aren't paid well at all.

So the journalism business is "living in interesting times", as the old curse goes. The kind of journalism that produced Kwamegate, I fear, we will see less and less of in the future.
Top of pageBottom of page

Thecarl
Member
Username: Thecarl

Post Number: 1439
Registered: 04-2005
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 4:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

here's the freeps' plan: 1) find out where cleanest bathrooms are, then 2) target the areas for additional newspaper sales. since readership of the printed version is flagging, the freep can make up for it by providing increased sales to a known bastion for privacy and reflection - the commode - where people love to read the paper. and while iphones and other wireless devices can be used to access the internet in crowded spaces, it's just not the same as taking a wide stance and opening the paper. then, with the added revenue, the freep will 3) hire some of the most savvy and tenacious investigative journalists out there. that's the plan.
Top of pageBottom of page

Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 3691
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 5:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Haha. Nice to see a little humor. I get angry about today's newspapers. :-)
Top of pageBottom of page

Servite76
Member
Username: Servite76

Post Number: 111
Registered: 02-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 5:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Easy guy's, your starting to depress me. I need the News and Freep to be around at least 10 more years so I can retire. I've got 33 years in now.
Top of pageBottom of page

Sludgedaddy
Member
Username: Sludgedaddy

Post Number: 223
Registered: 01-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 6:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

....and let's not forget to gripe about the proliferation of cellular phones....pity that Clark Kent guy and his inability to find a phone booth now-a-days.
Top of pageBottom of page

Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav

Post Number: 1119
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 6:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Servite76....I met someone from your school a few weeks ago; she is the assistant principal at Duffield Elementary School.
Top of pageBottom of page

Lefty2
Member
Username: Lefty2

Post Number: 2909
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 7:49 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How about a story on how nice the old Freep building downtown is... a little fist with a twist of humor to jab with the group.
Top of pageBottom of page

Gplimpton
Member
Username: Gplimpton

Post Number: 260
Registered: 05-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 9:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If they win a Pulitzer, it should go straight to Mike Stefani.
Top of pageBottom of page

Ct_alum
Member
Username: Ct_alum

Post Number: 25
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 10:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ever try to line the bottom of a birdcage with the internet? Doesn't work too well. Unfortunately that is all the News and Freep are good for these days with the likes of Rochelle Riley and Nolan Finley polluting the pages.
Top of pageBottom of page

Threecardmonte
Member
Username: Threecardmonte

Post Number: 2
Registered: 11-2008
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 10:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually, the Freep is doing a standup job of both -- Pulitzer-caliber journalism and celebrity rag gossip -- sometimes in the same story! How else to explain Elrick's scoop last week that Kwame Kilpatrick eats oranges in jail?
Top of pageBottom of page

Reddog289
Member
Username: Reddog289

Post Number: 707
Registered: 08-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 2:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I hope for Servite76,s as well as the other printers sake they stay in print, But like many folks who still get the paper I ask myself why? do I even bother.I signed up to get Fri,Sat,Sun, with Thurs thrown in for Free. I pretty much got it for the ads&coupons but I found that I might only use 5 coupons a month at max, and shop at pretty much Meijer,Kroger and HomeDepot or a few local stores.Being formerly employed in the printing industry, I,d hate to see papers go by the wayside, yet anymore when I pick up the paper from the yard I have read this site or seen it on TV.
Top of pageBottom of page

Sumas
Member
Username: Sumas

Post Number: 361
Registered: 01-2008
Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 2:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I like to read my morning paper while enjoying my cup of coffee. Yesterday, wasn't so great though since I had to get dressed to crawl through my shrubs to retrieve my paper. This is not the first time. How hard can it be to get the paper on the porch? Old habits die hard but I might have to rethink my life style. Most news I read I have already seen on the internet or the TV news.
Top of pageBottom of page

Smogboy
Member
Username: Smogboy

Post Number: 9304
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 3:12 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I used to really cherish the days when the News and the Freep had some guts in hard hitting news. Lord that seems like so long ago now. Between the JOA, the strike (which didn't do either side any good), Mitch Albom (losing all credibility AND the Freep keeping him on), the lack of content, and the price- I've stepped further away from actual print journalism now.

When I was a kid I delivered the News and thought newspapers were the bastions of integrity. If it hit print, it was the truth. And since then, I see that it isn't the case. Some of today's papers report on wild speculation, chase celebs, and beyond the weather and sports scores- there hasn't been much for an avid reader to dig one's teeth into anymore. In this day & age of immediate gratification, if it wasn't for their websites- I probably wouldn't even be reading either one of the local "papers" and even then with a huge dose of skepticism at times.
Top of pageBottom of page

Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise

Post Number: 3936
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 11:37 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The only investigation you see in journalism now is a sports report, and I don't give a damn about that. :-)

Add Your Message Here
Posting is currently disabled in this topic. Contact your discussion moderator for more information.