Newspapers: HYBRIDS OR MUTTS? (4#) -

As the newspapers shift some of their content online or maybe all their content online, festering resentments are being exposed . . .

Is it just a coincidence that The Sopranos TV series was set in New Jersey where many NYC-based Media professionals actually live but don't get much news coverage?

Some of the public's hostility to contemporary newspapers could be due to their engagement in underhanded or criminal activity, so that they do not appreciate the scrutiny of the Press.

But even ordinary residents of the community have expressed some surprising reasons for feeling antagonistic. When I was living up North, some of my neighbors said that the supposedly local newspaper often sent "fly-by" reporters from elsewhere in the country who made them feel like inhabitants in a zoo.

:: Mark Potts: "A large number of people are actively rooting for newspapers and other media to die horrible deaths."

# Joe Strupp, Media Professional, is now experiencing the novel sensation of what it's like to have the News Media encroaching on your courtyard.

# There has been a lot of chatter on the Net lately among Media Professionals about McClatchy quietly trying to put The Miami Herald up for sale. What - dumped already? Chuck Taylor, who is monitoring the situation out in Seattle, reports that McClatchy claims their stock is the SeaTimes is now "worthless." Is that a drunken elephant I hear or are the natives restless tonight?

# Closer to home, there's some good news
and some bad news about The Sun-Sentinel.

First, the good news: They are very slowly starting to modernize and bring the paper up to date for the 21st Century. They have activated their Twitter account. And someone must have made an end run around the Chief Editor's back while they opened a crack in their window to "outside" Blogs in the community. The Editor there, who sometimes seems to be a control freak, has been outspoken in his intense antagonism toward outside Bloggers.

The bad news is that their front page
screen has become even more prolix.

The burning question is:
can they make the newspaper
current in time to avert disaster?

I don't know the answer to that question.

But, as they say: A rising tide lifts all boats.

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