TKC EXCLUSIVE!!! KANSAS CITY NEWSPAPERS ARE SLIMMING DOWN AND FRIGHTENINGLY THIN LIKE A HIPSTER WEARING SKINNY JEANS!!!
The death of print media is coming quicker than anyone thinks in Kansas City.
Last year, BlogKC chronicled cutbacks at suburban papers and his post piqued my interest . . . In my relentless pursuit of the scoop, I actually had to talk to people which is pretty rare because, as a blogger, I have a natural aversion to any form of research.
Anyhoo . . . I knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere talking to people at The Star because most of them hate me and they don't like the fact that I've been able to gain a modicum of noteriety by poaching their hard work and adding my own spin, silliness, misspellings and grammatical errors. Soooooooo . . . I called a few people at McClatchy. Guess what? They were REALLY friendly and nice which might have something to do with the fact that the company is almost a penny stock.
Off the record, they chatted for much longer than I expected and even gave me a hint at which writers are about to hit the bricks . . . Rest assured Jeneé Osterheldt can't keep writing about Facebook for much longer now that she's quickly approaching 30 - It's just not cute anymore that a grown woman is writing a "column" that reads more like a crappy blog and could have been thrown together by a bored college sophomore.
It gets better . . .
Just like their smaller dead tree counterparts:
SOMETIME LATER THIS YEAR THE STAR WILL STOP PUBLISHING AS MANY AS THREE OF THEIR DAILY EDITIONS!!!
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it's not my fault that circulation is going to start to suffer because few people want to pay or an ad in the "paper of record" that's only read by senior citizens and homeless people examining their makeshift blanket.
Printing the news on sheets of paper and then hiring an army of trucks to take the news across the City in the middle of the night is just a bad idea. Sadly, there just isn't as much money in Internet publishing to support the hundreds of employees it currently requires to produce and distribute Kansas City's paper-of-record. The current recession/depression isn't helping things either . . . Online, The Star barely makes enough revenue to pay Jason Whitlock and marketers just don't trust banner ads despite better data on customer behavior.
If online news is the future (it is) then it's worth noting that The Star has roughly the same page views of a site like Gawker.com HOWEVER, Gawker has a staff of less than a dozen . . . Do the math.
Niche publications have it just a little bit better but not by much.
A KICKASS TKC TIPSER AND EXPERT LOCAL BIZ PERSON RECENTLY TOOK NOTICE OF THE DRASTICALLY DIMINISHED PAGE COUNT OF THE PITCH!!!
The ads are smaller and The Pitch is falling behind Ink in terms of page count. That's right, on paper and to advertisers - Ink is beating The Pitch. Sorry.
It's really just a numbers game:
THE PAGE COUNT OF THE PITCH THIS YEAR HAS GONE DOWN FROM MORE THAN 64 TO 48 IN THE PAST TWO ISSUES!!!
Already they've laid off or restructured the jobs of some of their very best talent. If they have to cut any deeper I imagine the newsroom will be nothing more than Nadia "I'm still thinking about Tony hitting on my 2 years ago" Pflaum, C.J. Janovy and Justin "Hack" Kendall huddled together looking for story ideas from their text messages.
There's no denying that it's important to consider this sudden reduction in staff, page count and now printed editions for local dead tree media. The news landscape is changing and it's not for the better. TV stations are much better at making the Internet work to their advantage than newspapers. TV news coverage isn't as in-depth but it's far more timely and captivating. Remember that Newspapers once had huge overseas bureaus reporting on International events but the average news consumer doesn't really misses that coverage . . . We'd rather read about the social lives of the ladies who write Ink (ugh) . . . So there is a precedent for the absence of news coverage that people once thought was crucial.
Again, I'm just reporting what so many people are afraid to make public . . . For now. But if there was somebody to blame in all of this it might be Mike Hendricks, Mary Sanchez and so many other elitist reporters, editors and pundits who pushed their agenda all over the so-called paper of record.
Objectivity is a myth but the newspaper once did a better job of pretending to uphold this standard. The actions of the rag in the Stadium Tax vote, the election of Mayor Funky and the light rail fiasco have shown that the pages of the Star are nothing more than another political platform . . . Objective information or even insightful opinion is a rarity and Internet denizens are now realizing that a few exclusive details coupled with an agenda isn't really the 4th estate . . . It's something that any blogger can provide.
More ass please.
ReplyDeleteDid you graduate from the third grade? It's "has gone down," not "has went down." Example sentence: Tony has gone down on Alonso Washington at least 100 times. Or: Tony's girlfriend has gone down on everyone except Tony.
ReplyDeleteBlog owner approval? This e-rag is worthless without the comments.
ReplyDeleteInk has more pages because they're running ads for free. As in, the businesses canceled the ads, have stopped paying, but the ads continue to run so Ink can give the impression that it's selling space.
ReplyDeleteWhen was the last time you went looking for Ink? Ok, stop laughing. When was the last time you noticed a distribution spot for Ink that was empty, or even low on papers? They've got to be pulping over half their run.
Whatevs.
ReplyDeletethe pitch sucks! the lame ass story on shit jeans LEE sucked , jus like the jeans.....jus like nancy lee drove the brand into the ground. c*nt whore.
ReplyDeleteGoodbye Jenee. I'm gonna miss those big hoop earrings.
ReplyDeleteOf course. A person calls McClatchy and they immediately spill their future business plans to a stranger.
ReplyDeleteThis is entirely plausible and of course, it is almost certainly true.
I read the star police blog everyday hoping to see Tony's name arrested with young boys
ReplyDeleteThe Star has broken it's bond with it's readers... I can't say what they are but I can say that anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that what they expected from the Star in the past is no longer attainable.
ReplyDeleteSo the readers are shifting elsewhere in droves... maybe out of disgust, maybe out of the hope that they can find fair, unbiased truthful reporting from somewhere else. Again, I can't say.
In any event, like the Orange Revolution, the Star is about dead... maybe we will wind up with a Sunday paper ---> I mean let's be real, there has to be some vehicle to deliver cents off coupons to the masses, eh?
I really can not shed any tears for the Star. They NEVER give equal space to any opposition to a ballot proposal. They usually do not report they "make News" with their Krasky type pronouncements. "Oh play the march lowly and play the march slowly " all the way to the cementery for useless things.
ReplyDeleteThink the page count might've dropped because the holiday spending is over and fewer people are selling as hard? And because that just wrapped up in the last two weeks? Hmmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteTony:
ReplyDeleteI don't expect perfect grammar from you. Maybe you can get one of the KC Star's laid off copy editors to edit you as a volunteer whilst they look for work. Perhaps that will make that one commenter above happier. ;)
I come here looking for an interesting take and you never disappoint. And photos of half naked women. ;)
Excellent post. You nailed why the dead tree media is dying. You are a blogging god!
Todd Epp
Kansas Watch http://www.kansaswatch.net
I had spam just last night... and the dogs LOVE SPAM. I had to cook a large can and I only got two sandwiches (4 slices) out of it!
ReplyDeletenuthin like pork shoulder!!
does stink up the house tho.
The girl in this msg is very nice. I love girls with smaller boobs not modified by the doctor.
Maybe it's a 'grass is greener' thing. My wife's been threatenening to get a boob reduction all her life!
Oh well.
Yes, newspapers are going to shrink. And Americans are going to learn to get by with LESS... we have priced ourselves out of the world market... skilled people overseas will work for less because they don't have the taxes, the military, the health care, the need for quarter million dollar houses, SUV's, private schools for kids, expensive licensed daycare centers, big superhighways, wars in the wrong countries, and BLOATED BUREUCRATIC STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS who pay for expensive schools, special education, eldercare in nursing homes, etc etc etc etc etc etc.
Thats why the whole world will build products for less than we will! And they ARE.
Barack can throw all the borrowed money he wants against the natural laws of supply and demand... but he's wasting his time and our paper money.
He's only doing what the govermen'ts done for twenty years... just PLAYING FOR TIME!
We've already hit the iceberg, we just haven't sank yet! Don't panic. It won't hurt much.
It seems like 80% of the pitch is advertisements. Many of them duplicated several times.
ReplyDeleteI know, it is annoying. If they take away Charles Ferruzza then I will stop reading.
ReplyDeleteThe dead tree media, blah, blah, blah.
ReplyDeleteTell me this, loser, Why aren't you selling ads on this site. Seems to me you could make a few bucks?
I wouldn't mind reading that explanation. As to another tired bitch session about the star... man, that gets old.
9:13 is correct and makes a great point. The Star makes great money compared to a blogger living in the basement.
ReplyDeleteOUCH
ReplyDeleteTrue.
LEE jeans SUCK!
ReplyDeletewell maybe that too. but really the PITCH SUCKS!
ReplyDeleteNo one should be happy about the demise of the traditional newspaper if you care about democracy. Like Tony said TV is not the in depth and online versions of the old print vehicles can't support the legion of reporters they used to have then who is going to really hunker down and have the resources to be the watchdogs on government, local and national. Bloggers don't have the resources and like Tony, are good at breaking rumors that often turn out to be true but don't research or have time to go to all of the municiple government meetings, etc.
ReplyDeleteI used to work for the oldest and largest newspaper and magazine auditing firm. Here's the skinny on why traditional news outlets (i.e. the daily newspaper) is dying - we don't consume media the way we used to. Plain and simple. We get our news online or through one of our many mobile devices. The real danger here is that a few large media companies will have much more control, and as John Mayer said, when you own the information you can bend it all you want.
ReplyDeleteHEY WHEN IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN?
ReplyDeleteIn eight years
ReplyDelete