Around the Mountains: It’s a wrap for papers in Ketchum and Vail

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20081226/NEWS/812269980/1078&ParentProfile=1055&title=Around%20the%20Mountains:%20It%92s%20a%20wrap%20for%20papers%20in%20Ketchum%20and%20Vail

Ad losses send industry into a tailspin

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11142071

Rocky Mountain News for sale

Parent company says it will entertain offers -- if any -- for next four-six weeks

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/dec/04/rocky-mountain-news-sale/

Newspapers face fresh printing pressures




http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2cac4b2-b400-11dd-8e35-0000779fd18c.html

The Statesman should test market edible information products

After delivering millions of sometimes-bland newspapers, I finally came up with a recipe ripe to compete with the Internet; via products you can simply eat, rather than wastefully toss out or recycle:

Start out small, like at the food mall, and then mix nutritious soy based ink with cellulose news columns. Wrap into hermetically sealed rice paper, stuffed with ads. Organically orient the A Section to include everyman’s essential waking vitamins, with a whiff of caffeine providing the Buzz for B. In winter, Lifestyles could supply Vitamin C, to lick the dark.

Occasionally articles come along that are so well written, such as Zimo’s Overlooked diving ducks, that they don’t need extra spices to whet readers hardy appetites.

To alleviate rogue dogs from snatching the tasty wraps from the ground, require home subscribers to maintain a sanitary Statesman box, modified in the form of a child’s toy oven. When neighbors see subscribers pull out steamingly nutritious news wraps, they, too, will greatly desire your munchable broadsheets.

Your first edible edition could proudly proclaim, “Newspaper naysayers eat their words.” To prove this is not a half-baked idea, you could swiftly upgrade your Internet version to include text-message toast. (This is credible)

P.S. When the day comes that you can strengthen your rice paper by bonding it with edible hemp fibers; that too, will be a newsworthy event unto itself.

Monitor shifts from print to Web-based strategy

In 2009, the Monitor will become the first nationally circulated newspaper to replace its daily print edition with its website; the 100 year-old news organization will also offer subscribers weekly print and daily e-mail editions.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html

And Now for the Good FAS-FAX News: Top 10 Circ Gainers

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003878054

NEW FAS-FAX OUT: Most Major Papers Continue Circ Decline

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003878037

Wood River Journal sells assets to Express Publishing

Hailey weekly closes its doors

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005123225#list

America's Strangest NewspaperThe peculiar, plucky story of Investor’s Business Daily.

http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2008/10/14/americas-strangest-newspaper

Statesman owner to cut 10% of workforce



http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-sep1608-mcclatchy.81df482e.html

Mi-Ai Parrish: In challenging times, we're focusing on the future

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/story/505279.html

Public Appearance of Publick Occurrences

Some stories in the first edition scandalized Colonial authorities, including a report that the King of France "used to lie with the sons wife."

The British-controlled authorities, fearing a free press and objecting to the paper’s criticism of the government, ordered the paper shut down.

It would be 14 years until America’s second newspaper, the Boston News-Letter, appeared in 1704. By the end of the 18th century, though, 235 newspapers flourished in the newly formed United States.

http://www.newseum.org/news/news.aspx?item=nn_PUBO080903&style=f

More archiving thoughts

Being a furniture mover with the secret identity of a writer and vice-versa, I wondered how the Wood River Journal was going transport their 127 years of archives, along with its customized bookshelves into their new building across Main Street.

Someone told me that the new publisher, Jerry Brady took these valuable assets to Idaho Falls; presumably to patch up the books that were falling apart and possibly begin a scanning project, working hand in hand with expert Mormon Church genealogy archivists.

That's refreshing to hear, since there is a chance that the Journal will fold by the end of this year. Evidently, their grand announcement of partner shipping with Sun Valley Online never got past the incubation stage. It would be a shame to see their historical archives warehoused in a place permanently unavailable to the public.

The other thing that would happen with the Journal’s demise would be the lack of healthy competition, which as Statesman editor Kevin Richert suggests would likely result in a slip in quality at the remaining newspaper.

Last year Shea Anderson wrote a piece for High Country News about a New Mexican newspaper, where he used to work, that recently went to the wayside. I responded to Shea’s story with a fundraising suggestion regarding preservation of archives for newspaper going out of business and later passed this on to the Newseum curators.

They were open to this idea, but at the time had their hands full in preparation for the grand opening on our National Mall.

It’s too bad that libraries and newspaper don’t work in closer proximity with each other. For instance, are librarians scanning newspapers into Pdf’s when they could be better investing their time by having the newspaper production managers e-mail them the same thing? Do they ever even discuss such items with each other? Some communities probably work more streamlined than others do, but newspaper insiders here say that whenever they try to obtain grants for such special projects, they come up against a lot of flack, because the newspaper is for profit. Hard to say but it could be that personality issues are flies in these printers ink ointment frays.

Meanwhile, Google has been raising newspaper morgues from the dead.

Google raising newspaper morgues from the dead

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10035172-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Google is making searchable, digital copies of old newspapers available online through partnerships with their publishers, the company said Monday.

Under the ad-supported effort, Google will digitize millions of pages of news archives, including photos, articles, headlines, and advertisements, Google said.

Google's newspaper archive search and display effort is supported by ads, visible on the right edge. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: CNET News)

"Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written. And it's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily," said product manager Punit Soni in a blog posting about the effort. "The problem is that most of these newspapers are not available online. We want to change that."

The effort is of particular interest to reporters such as myself who've made the jump from print journalism to online. When I started at CNET News a smidgen shy of 10 years ago, I was initially concerned that the online medium was more ephemeral than print.

story continues at link

Betting on David Black

Major dailies are shedding employees, hemorrhaging cash, and losing advertisers to the Web. So why is David Black swimming in ink?

http://www.seattleweekly.com/content/printVersion/467206

News Does Not Want to be Free

Three cures for ailing newspapers

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A316354

Idaho Media Shrinkage

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A316357

Printer's Devil 1/6

Launch a fiery campaign to reinvent newspapers

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/story/574088.html

Idaho Statesman job cutbacks

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-jun1608-statesman_job_cuts.d05992d.html

More Than 100 Opt in for 'Washington Post' Buyout

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003804581

Two weekly papers to close; Sale of Wood River Journal final

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1444116/

Newspapers in Lewiston, Moscow announce job cuts

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/04/12/ap-state-id/d8vvuuso1.txt

Idaho Falls paper looks at buying Wood River Journal

http://www.mtexpress.com/vu_breaking_story.php?bid=5216

Rumors of newspapers' demise exaggerated

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/04/06/opinion/editors_column/134304.txt

NAA Reveals Biggest Ad Revenue Plunge in More Than 50 Years

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003781895

Pedro Pulling Out

http://www.woodriverjournal.com/articles/2008/03/04/opinion/journal_opinion/edit.txt

Community Paper

Sun Valley residents band together to buy local paper


http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A312051

"Sofro is calling it the "Green Bay Packers" form of ownership, referring to the only professional football team to be owned by the town in which it's based. There would be different levels of involvement depending on the investor, allowing some to be silent partners while some may sit on the board of directors, and still others may join the paper's editorial board.

The Journal is currently owned by Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, a fact that has hurt the publication's reputation in the tightly knit mountain community.

"[Corporate ownership is] something that we've been beaten up heavily [about] by other media, especially the Mountain Express," said Journal publisher Trey Spaulding.

Spaulding, who took over the Journal in 2005, hopes the sale will bring some much-needed stability to the paper, which has changed hands numerous times since it was founded in 1974. The paper has been locally owned at various times in its history, and Spaulding said the Journal was at its most profitable during those periods.

"It's a good move," Spaulding said. "It's positive for the community and the paper."

While Lee Enterprises was cast as the Boogie Man, sucking money out of the area, Spaulding said the paper has not been profitable for years, yet the company continued to invest in the Journal.

Sofro said the sale price of the paper isn't the biggest money concern, but rather coming up with the operating funds to keep publishing the paper.

So why would anyone want to buy an unprofitable newspaper in a time when print journalism's relevance is already being called into question? "

Smaller daily US newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, rolls its presses for the last time

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/smaller-daily-us-newspaper-in/n20080224002409990064

Newspapers must become a news web

http://www.thebogles.com/blog/2008/03/newspapers-must-become-news-webs

The West loses a scrappy daily paper

by Shea Anderson

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17540

Newspaper industry struggles lead to potential sale of Wood River Journal

http://www.sunvalleyonline.com/news/article.asp?ID_Article=4762

The West loses a scrappy daily paper

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.WOTRArticle?article_id=17540

Down With the Newseum!

We don't need a gilded home for 6,214 journalism artifacts.

http://www.slate.com/id/2183936?nav=wp

Unstable Times

By Rip Rense:

http://www.rense.com/general80/times.htm

LA Times editor fired in budget dispute

http://www.idahostatesman.com/aptopstories/story/270675.html

Jewish Congress Menaces Homeless Newspaper Over Makow

http://www.rense.com/general80/menace.htm

Gutenberg died impoverished

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

Gutenberg got into debt to a man named Fust, who called in the debt, stole his invention, and made millions off of it. Gutenberg died impoverished.

The Whiskey Rebellion

In praise of booze in the newsroom.

http://www.slate.com/id/2181183/