Posted on 06/12/2009 12:59:46 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
As a newspaper monopoly crumbles, unorthodox upstarts storm the marketplace. Welcome to the future of journalism.
If you want a glimpse of what local news may soon look like in big cities with shrinking newspapers, head to San Diego. Here you'll find a Web news venture that gives writers a cut of the ad money created by their own stories; another whose nonprofit founders raise money from readers to buy laptops for their reporters; and a third venture which, in spite of the $10 million it nets each year, faces a very uncertain future.
All three are vying for the attention of 3 million San Diegans, an affluent-skewing population living in neatly landscaped suburbs and large beachfront properties. The area is rife with biotech startups and defense contractors. San Diego is California's second-largest city, yet it's a one-newspaper town whose newspaper is faltering. Ad revenue at the San Diego Union-Tribune has dropped 40% since 2006.
In March, Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity, a buyout shop with no experience in publishing, announced it would acquire the paper. Analysts say Platinum is more interested in the 13 acres of prime real estate at the paper's headquarters in Mission Valley than its flagship product. "They bought the land and got the newspaper free," says one developer. Last month Platinum announced nearly 200 Union-Tribune staffers would be laid off. A newspaper that once employed 1,422 people will soon employ just 572. "The Union-Tribune is cratering. That opens a hole in the market and the opportunity for some unconventional business models," says Ken Doctor, media analyst at Outsell.
That is just what Neil “Baby" Senturia, a San Diego technology entrepreneur known for his trademark black baseball caps, has in mind. He launched the San Diego News Network (SDNN) in March using a "regional aggregation strategy"--akin to
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Not sure what a "staffer" is but if it's the politically correct morons who refuse to call an ILLEGAL alien an ILLEGAL alien I say good riddance.
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