Questions Worth Asking (Maybe) – Newspaper Edition
- Is GateHouse poised to own 1 in 6 of America’s newspapers?
Looks like it. GateHouse is reportedly in talks to purchase Gannett, which would combine the nation’s two largest newspaper chains. Then new company would control 254 dailies and hundreds of weeklies. (Nieman Lab)
- Are newspapers still newspapers when they go all-digital?
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette planning to cease paper publication, go exclusively digital
The leading Pittsburgh, PA paper is reportedly poised to cease all print operations and operate exclusively online. This would appear to be more of a cost-cutting decision than one focused on meeting subscribers’ needs. (Pittsburgh Current)
- Chicago Defender, iconic African American newspaper has gone all-digital
As of July 11th, the 114-year-ld black newspaper is no longer being printed in physical form. The paper’s legacy includes “driving the Great Migration of African Americans to Chicago from the South and bolstering the black electorate as a key constituency in national politics.” (Chicago Sun Times)
- How can the Washington Post get rid of cookies and still be able to study their readers?
By moving their tracking in-house instead of making use of third-party cookies and tracking data (think Facebook and Google), The Post and publications that license their technology can deal better with both effective targeting and maintaining reader privacy. (Although not mentioned in this article, I would guess that this new tech is one of the big outcomes of having the paper owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.) (Digiday)
- Why is Starbucks going to stop selling newspapers in September?
Because customers just “borrow” them off the rack without paying for them. In short, everybody steals the newspapers, so there’s no money to be made from selling them. Hmmm… think I’ve heard something like this before. (NY Post)
