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The San Francisco Chronicle In Trouble?

March 24th, 2007

I really don’t like reading articles like this one and this one (found via Dave Winer at Scripting News). Supposedly the San Francisco Chronicle is in trouble and the editor told staff that the newspaper industry is broken and in disrepair. Layoffs are likely before the end of the year.

Earlier, when I read this article from Dave Lazarus (he writes for The Chronicle), I thought to myself, something must be going on at the paper that would make him so angry and defensive, in a “circle the wagons” type of way. Needless to say, I think his approach is totally wrong and would only hasten newspapers’ demise (he suggests charging for content).

Anyhow, Dave Winer has some interesting suggestions, similar to many that have been bandied about on various blogs in the past. He suggests: making journalism a required course of every college graduate (because now, anybody can be a journalist), and embracing the best bloggers with ad revenue sharing.

Personally, I think this lack of ideas is sad. The Chronicle is physically located at the nexus of new media with its proximity to Silicon Valley, scads of venture capital firms, publishing companies, and all the tech boom activity going on in the SOMA area. Can’t they just get Kevin Rose and Steve Jobs on the phone for some informational interviews?

Could The Chronicle announced some bold redesign like USAToday, transforming it into a Web 2.0 site, and go for some VC money?

If the alternative is more pain and possibly death, drastic moves might be worth a shot.

Additional Reading: Rex Hammock, Thomas Hawk, Glass House, Doc Searls, Scott Karp

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  • Mike
    I see the newspaper industry decentralizing, just as the recording and movie industries are heading towards.

    For example, one of my favorite blogs to read is Daring Fireball. John Gruber doesn't write for a newspaper, and as far as I know, never has. And his writing kicks the crap out of most tech sections in newspapers (though David Pogue, in the New York Times, is another great read).

    The fact that Daring Fireball has an article every few days, and smaller linked pieces daily, makes it more appealing to me. I read things the day they happened, not the day afterwards. And, he makes great use of RSS, which is a bandwagon I've only seen newspapers hop on recently.

    Heck, the LA Times requires you to register an account with them to read an article. The New York Times requires an account for articles a couple of weeks old, and a *paid* account for articles that aren't really recent. That's stupid.

    Either newspapers need to pick up the best bloggers, or the good journalists need to get their own blog going, and develop a following. What's nice about a revolution of an industry like this is, the people who have finally worked out how to do a crappy job *and* somehow fit in and just get their pay, are typically left behind in the shuffle.
  • Hey mike, yeah, the more I think about stuff like this, it can be said that "old media" meaning the music industry, movies, print, heck even television, are all facing the same challenge of getting up to the level of media access the consumer is at.
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