Monday, June 27, 2011

Obosolete?

The Albuquerque Journal has its new website online.  It is okay.  In the Sunday print edition it was stated that the website is not meant to replace the newspaper, but rather to enhance it.  That might have been the wrong thing to say.  Enhance what?

For the umpteenth time the Journal rehashed, on the front page, its story of alleged financial investment misdeeds of the Richardson administration.  Nothing really new.  Just more evidence of the Journal's obsessive compulsive disorder.  They have been on this for three years now and I am still waiting for something new to happen.

Like coming up with some reasons to keep from going out of business, which would be a blow for New Mexico.  No one talks much about it, but the newspaper still does not appear to be regaining any financial stability and the current leadership is sticking with the same old formula that has absolutely no potential for brining in new readers  to its print or web editions.  Maybe it is just time for a leadership change in the highest offices of the publisher and news side staff.

Then again maybe newspapers as we know it are just doomed.  I know many young people and not one of them ever gets newsprint ink on their fingers.  One of them said today, "I am just fine with the Huffington Post."  But of course the HuffPost aggregates their information from newspapers too.

At any rate, if there isn't a new approach at the Journal we could well end up with no morning coffee with the newspaper. And maybe only my generation thinks or even cares about it.

2 comments:

Rodney said...

If the Journal publishers weren't so ideologically driven they might have a chance to survive. I'm with you in feeling that continuing to subscribe is throwing good money after bad, but we have no real alternative.

Anonymous said...

I'm on my last subscription to the Journal; its news is old and the reporting is too right leaning. Too bad there wasn't a newspaper that was more balanced.