Behold the Buckinghamshire Advertiser. It’s a newspaper Web site. Go on, take a look. It’s a blog, as pretty as any othe I’ve seen. It’s a newspaper Website that’s being run on blogging software.
I’m sure it’s easier to use than any newspaper Web site software I’ve ever tried to use. And I’m sure it’s less complicated than whatever it is the Jorunal Star uses. Any small newspaper in America can put something like this together — including paying someone to design their template — for a several hundred dollars, not to mention the cost of Web hosting, which might cost $100 a month for a dedicated sever. It is does as good a job as presenting the distributing news in words and pictures as any printing press, which costs much, much more to use. And it doesn’t requires any trees by cut down, pulped and transported across the country in trucks or on trains.
And consider that if it costs that little for a newspaper to run, what’s stopping folks — perhaps disgruntled newsies with some start-up capital perhaps — from coming along and doing the same thing and not bothering with a print edition.
Someone -please explain to me how there could possibly not be a revolution underway in how news is delivered?
Thr printed newspaper is doomed. It’s only a matter of time.
Yes, there are people who grew up with print and aren’t comfortable using the Internet. The obituary section of today’s newspaper is full of people like that. Meanwhile, over in the birth announcements, there’s a list of people who will be emailing, chatting and using Wikipedia for school reports by age seven. These will be people for whom getting news online is second nature, and who think the idea of paying a teeneger to hand-deliver 12-hour-old news door-to-door makes as much sense as relying on the Pony Express.
Do the math.
Hat tip: Jeff Jarvis.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
You have to admit Billy, its alittle hard to read a blog while your on the toilet. Thats why print is important, its easier to bring into the bathroom to do business and read, but good post…anyway.
You can’t use your PDA in the toilet?
I’ll buy a print newspaper as long as there is one to sell in Peoria. I enjoy getting my paper every morning. Someday they may replace the print paper, but, until then print rules. Digital Newspaper’s are just not the same…..
Sometimes I print out blogs and use them while sitting on the toilet.
What’s with all the random words underlined that have pop-up ads associated with them? Can you make that go away? At least when I’m reading the newspaper, I don’t have advertising right in the middle of a story.
That’s a crappy comment to make …
…the rest of CJ’s comment is continued on page B-17.
BWAHAHAHAHAH!
CJ should have bought the Tribune
Why bother. After the Trib’s spiffy new ESOP forces them to sell out again in 10 years, they will be up for sale again. Perhaps GateHouse Media can pick it up at a yard sale.
Thank goodness there are no jump-to’s on blogs!
C.J. is right; those dadgum text ads are annoying. They’re not as bad as popups, but definitely more intrusive than a good banner. IMHO, at least…
I’m giving them a try. Be patient, they are less intrusive than you think after you get used to them.
And you can’t share a blog or pass it around. Something about paper that just keeps people coming back. Sure, news is moving to the Net, but paper will always be here.
At least a newspaper doesn’t have those annoying green underlined ads that pop up.
But the Journal Star now does paste advertising stickers on their front page.
Folks have been predicting the death of print for 20 years now. Rumors of its demise appear to have been exaggerated.
I’ve been computerized since I was six and on teh internets since I was fourteen and I vastly prefer print newspaper to reading online. And there are good reasons to prefer print.
This might come as a shock, but we actually DON’T NEED 24 hour news. There are few things short of tornados I need to know about RIGHT THIS INSTANT, and they have sirens for that. (And — shock of shocks — they actually still break into broadcast network television for things that are REALLY important.) And there are a lot of people my age who are opting out of cable TV and 24-hour connectedness in favor of choosing our times and places to get data. The wired generation knows better than the Boomers how empty and repetitive 24-hour data streams can be, because we’ve never lived in a world without them. I was TWO when CNN joined the world. I do not remember a time before 24-hour news and I have never attended a school without a computer lab.
Small wonder, then, that I prefer my news in a single discreet chomp, well-written by competent journalists and analyzed by people who follow a story for years and know its ins and outs. I’ve been surrounded by the vapidity of instant-streaming news since I was an infant. I prefer something a little more substantial and a little less torrential.
Besides which, reading at a computer continues to be unpleasant, and there are few people who spend all day working in front of one who then want to do their leisure reading at a terminal.
No, but there is the “continue reading>>>” thing.
Bill, you know that your site is far from the first to implement text-underline ads. Some of my previously-favorite sites have implemented them. I’m not saying that I eventually abandoned those sites /only/ because of the text-underline ads, but they were one of two main contributors (the other being articles
broken into
eight million
pages, each
having only
two words
so as to
maximize ad
impressions).
The news (re)cycle…
While the Oklahoman works on rolling out NewsOK Beta, a smaller paper in the British Isles has gone for a simpler approach. The Buckinghamshire Advertiser, owned by group operator Trinity Mirror plc and selling 20,000 copies daily, has converted its……
[...] Peoria Pundit Billy Dennis says this is “more evidence that print is doomed”: I’m sure it’s easier to use than any newspaper Web site software I’ve ever tried to use. And I’m sure it’s less complicated than whatever it is the [Peoria] Journal Star uses. Any small newspaper in America can put something like this together — including paying someone to design their template — for several hundred dollars, not to mention the cost of Web hosting, which might cost $100 a month for a dedicated server. It does as good a job as presenting the distributing news in words and pictures as any printing press, which costs much, much more to use. And it doesn’t require any trees be cut down, pulped and transported across the country in trucks or on trains. [...]