There's an informal mail list started
by Karl Martino, with various people from the Philadelphia Daily News,
Knight-Ridder pubs, various A-list bloggers, editorial people from
other news organizations. The topic is the upheaval happening in
Knight-Ridder papers, and since Karl is from Philadelphia, a blogger,
and an ex-Philly.com tech guy, the focus is on Philadelphia. Yesterday
came news that one of the investment bankers working for K-R has
suggested that no matter what the Daily News will shut down. Whether or
not this is true, it has sparked a heated discussion. This is my
contribution, pulled out of context, admittedly, but the context sure
ain't pretty. This follows the grain of my How to Make Money pieces,
written in 2001 and 2000, and assumes that what will replace the Daily
News is some hybrid of what exists today and citizen journalism. Here's
the post.
Here's what you can do right now:
1. Use the newspaper that
still exists to inform the community that it's fairly likely that the
newspaper is about to go out of existence.
2. Ask leaders from
the community to let you know what *they* want to do about it. If they
want to start writing for the newspaper, covering local events, school
board meetings, high school sports events, whatever. Don't ask them for
money, let them think of that (it's pretty obvious you need money,
right?)
3. Start running their pieces right now, in the print paper.
4. Give them editorial space on the op-ed page (if you have one) and on
the main editorial page as well. Let them not just report on the events
of the day, but offer a perspective on the events.
In other
words start the transition now from professional to community
editorial, while you still have the resources of a print daily.
And this isn't just about you -- it's about your community.
Imagine a different circumstance. You're in an airport, your flight has
been cancelled because the airline is laying off staff, and doesn't
have enough personnel to run the airline as-is. All the person behind
the counter can think of is whether or not they will get to keep their
job. As a member of their community this is pretty disturbing, because
what YOU care about is getting from point A to point B, safely. You're
in a strange city and you want to get home. But they're not thikning
about that, they're just thinking about their job. Is it
understandable? Sure. Is it acceptable? No!
Now these steps
also have the best chance of saving your job, because if you can show
that you can turn over reporting to the community and reduce staff to
editorial and administrative functions, you might just be able to find
a profitable business in there.
Good luck, and we'll be watching with interest.
Dave
# Posted by Dave Winer on 12/1/05; 2:34:40 PM - --
