Bell Media Cuts hit YYC hard

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Actually it is the other way around. That is how Trump gets his talking points and his votera. Seems like a system that just needs to die already.

Ya it is sad about some talented people being laid off but it is not like they are hard hitting deep investigative journalists . It is sort of a luxury to have sports reporters . they could just broadcast games and highlights with no commentary period. Games, highlights etc. The could just close caption everything.

Perspectives.

The problem is there are no longer very many hard-hitting journos, and the opinion piece talking heads are more dominant. Most people can't separate news from editorial content. Critical thinking is a lost art.

Sports is culture, when it isn't reported locally we lose something important.

IMO this decline all started with consolidation and editorial restrictions and guidance (Aspers, Black, Murdock).

Originally Posted by polak

So you want to go back before the internet?

The internet really killed the flow of information...

No not at all, it's sad no one came up with a good model for monetizing news on the web. The internet is just the medium; that's like blaming paper for the quality of what's printed on it.

A lot of the news these days is propagated by people that aren't qualified to do so IMO, and lack the education or experience to put things into context.

I get almost all of my sports news from the web. I'm always interested in reading more, and I can tolerate smart ads that try and sell me something I might be interested in or need.

Originally Posted by Jay Random

No one ever did want to pay for news. The newspaper industry used to pay the bills with classified advertising, until Craigslist and Kijiji took that away from them by doing it better. The TV and radio news business paid the bills with commercials, until the advent of Big Data made it possible for advertisers to see just how little value they were getting for money.

Meanwhile, there are more news sources now than ever before, and they are not spending most of their time just reprinting AP and Reuters stories, or following the one idiotic nonevent that the ‘24-hour news cycle’ has decided to shove down the whole world's throats that day. Losing these things does not make the public dumber; it merely takes away the illusion that they are informed about current events. They never were informed.

Interesting (if cynical) point. I think if it was possible to poll understanding of the world and civics the average person in the 1970s and 1980s was far more well-informed than people today; despite the Internet not having been popularized yet.

Knowledge has always been there for the taking, and it seems to me that people availed themselves of it more when it was harder to get.

I guess click bait and trolling is the future for sports news too.

This news makes me think of Ozzie, the main character in 'People of Earth' a TV show on Comedy Central. He is an award winning journo that finds himself writing Internet click bait (and then gets abducted by aliens). Funny show.

[Reggie Dunlop]

The loss of local sports reporting doesn't effect pro sports as much. They can afford to fund their publicity machines.
Minor sports suffers. There are worthwhile local stories worth telling. A sense of community, of connection, loses out.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

Interesting (if cynical) point. I think if it was possible to poll understanding of the world and civics the average person in the 1970s and 1980s was far more well-informed than people today; despite the Internet not having been popularized yet.

I was there, and remember.

Ignorant people were just as ignorant, but if they chose they could mask their ignorance more easily by dropping references to the one or two news stories that everybody was supposed to care about.

Informed people were less informed than they are now, because there was a lot less information published, and most of that had to pass through a small number of like-minded gatekeepers. It's a lot harder to kill a story now than it was then.

The ratio between ignorant and informed was not much different than now. If I had to take a guess at the curve, I'd say the mean was about the same, but the standard deviation was less than it is now.

[CliffFletcher]

Far fewer people read a newspaper or an online alternative today than 30 years ago. I'll take someone who read one of those stories that passed through gatekeepers like the Calgary Herald over someone today who doesn't read anything at all about public affairs and relies on Facebook updates as their window to the world.

People today are simply less interested in public affairs. With such an enormous amount of entertainment options, from Netflix and PS4 to posting pictures on Facebook and tweeting about movie stars, the difficult and often boring world of politics and public policy can't compete.

When people do consume news, they seek out the most sensationalist, frivolous, and abbreviated version they can find. The weekends update on SNL used to be a comical satire of the news. For a great many people today, that kind of infotainment is their only source of news.

Look at the presidential debate from 1980 and tell me people today are just as well informed or interested in listening to complex arguments. And at the time, Reagan was considered a populist lightweight. He comes across like Abraham Lincoln compared to candidates today.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Far fewer people read a newspaper or an online alternative today than 30 years ago.

As they say on Wikipedia, [citation needed]. I suspect you would find widely varying numbers on that, depending on what exactly is counted as an ‘online alternative’. To the newspaper industry, for instance, only an online newspaper subscription would count.

Let's also not forget that the newspaper industry used to deliver thousands of unpaid subscriptions to artificially boost their circulation numbers (and therefore advertising rates). The New York Times did it, for crying out loud. It no longer pays them to hand out free papers every day – but it would be a stretch to say that the people who received those particular copies actually read them.

[Northendzone]

Personally I do not really get why the local news stations feel the need to report on stuff outside of their viewing area, if I I want to know about bombings in the Middle East I will watch newsnet or news world. If I want the weather in Toronto, I'll go to the weather network.

I'd rather the local news be mostly local

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Personally I do not really get why the local news stations feel the need to report on stuff outside of their viewing area, if I I want to know about bombings in the Middle East I will watch newsnet or news world. If I want the weather in Toronto, I'll go to the weather network.

I'd rather the local news be mostly local

That's you. Many people will watch their local news for all their news, and not venture further. I can't believe you asked why a local news station would try to cover all the news for their viewers.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

No one wants to pay for news, so the choices become fewer and quality gets worse and the public get dumber.

This isn't true, Websites like the New York Times and Washington Post have both seen a major uptick in subscriptions since they started moving their business in that direction.


What does CTV offer that you can't find on Google News for free? How many people here actually followed CTV for their hockey related news instead of Calgary Puck, or maybe even a blogging site like Flames Nation? In fact between CP, Darren Hayes' blog and Flames Nation, I get all the Flames related news I need.


The way the media is delivering their content needs to change. People are willing to pay if you offer them a simple, easy, cost effective way of doing so where they get high quality content.


But seriously, who goes to CTV for news?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Itse

The internet has made it mostly unnecessary to have a gazillion reporters who all ask the same questions after the games and write pretty much the same stories. A couple will do just fine, because technology will let their story spread.

Besides, most sports news are so formulaic it's ridiculous. In Finland one paper already has an AI who writes the game stories, and really there's no difference to what the "reporters" do. Which means: equally useless. I know how to read the box score, I watch the games myself or if I don't I can see the highlights. All I need on top of that is a place where I can talk with other fans. The reporters add nothing.

Sure, sometimes it's nice to get some fluff interview about what's been going on with some player personally, but it's not something I'd ever pay for anyway. I don't honestly care that much about the personal lives of the players.

Why do I need to go to Sportsnet or TSN for a game story when I can get it here on CP followed with better hockey discussion?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Actually, the media rarely reports on the media. Most people in this city don't even know that the Sun and Herald are now both owned by the same company, or that the combined staff work in a Herald building that is 80 per cent empty.

Post Media?

Having worked with their digital advertising department before it is not surprising why they are dying a slow, painful death.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Azure

The way the media is delivering their content needs to change. People are willing to pay if you offer them a simple, easy, cost effective way of doing so where they get high quality content.

I disagree with this. It seems pretty clear that the majority of people have now adapted to a new society where you simply don't pay for things that people used to pay for, news and journalism being a major part of this shift.

People aren't waving their money looking for some mythical format that is being missed, they're just settling for less quality on free platforms because as a society we don't value what we used to.

People say these "dinosaurs" need to adapt like they're not seeing what's happening. The reality is there's very little actual consumer money to be had these days in news and journalism. There's tons of smart people in these industries, it's not like they're all a bunch of dummies while the smart message board folk have things figured out.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Azure

This isn't true, Websites like the New York Times and Washington Post have both seen a major uptick in subscriptions since they started moving their business in that direction.

They've determined that the few subscribers they have acquired pays way more than literally millions of web hits online because web hits have proven to pay next to nothing, to the point where it's not even worth everything that goes into a well researched/produced story.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I disagree with this. It seems pretty clear that the majority of people have now adapted to a new society where you simply don't pay for things that people used to pay for, news and journalism being a major part of this shift.

People aren't waving their money looking for some mythical format that is being missed, they're just settling for less quality on free platforms because as a society we don't value what we used to.

People say these "dinosaurs" need to adapt like they're not seeing what's happening. The reality is there's very little actual consumer money to be had these days in news and journalism. There's tons of smart people in these industries, it's not like they're all a bunch of dummies while the smart message board folk have things figured out.

Sorry to say, but if you do a quick google search on trends in subscriptions to digital news outlets, its obvious that they are growing fairly fast.

So clearly there are people who are willing to pay. Those who aren't weren't really paying for anything anyways. You're not exactly paying for a writer's salary with a $2 paper at the grocery store.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by jayswin

They've determined that the few subscribers they have acquired pays way more than literally millions of web hits online because web hits have proven to pay next to nothing, to the point where it's not even worth everything that goes into a well researched/produced story.

That is exactly what I am saying. They just found a business model where they can offer high quality content and get paid for it.

For $150 a year I can buy a one year subscription to the Washington Post which IMO offers very high quality content.

Well worth it.

[greentree]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Personally I do not really get why the local news stations feel the need to report on stuff outside of their viewing area, if I I want to know about bombings in the Middle East I will watch newsnet or news world. If I want the weather in Toronto, I'll go to the weather network.

I'd rather the local news be mostly local

Because they still have to fill their slots with whatever content they can muster/obtain. And because for decades viewers appreciated and became accustomed to a news encapsulation in one half-hour to one-hour shots. Newspapers offered the same model in many ways. But audiences have framented and advertisers have fled. And now we're stooopid.

[liamenator]

The problem with outsourcing journalism and coverage to freelancers working piecemeal in an online 'free market' is that it's not actually a free market. It appears to be so, but it's dependent on an advertising paradigm that is tremendously opaque, rewards certain kinds of content (and not others), and is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer entities. Google and Facebook shape the market for coverage and ideas because they control the ad marketplaces. You cannot scale and survive without them.

It's naive to trumpet the the 'free and open' nature of web publishing. Yeah, you can start 'your own blog', but it's nothing without Adsense or Adwords. And there's almost no access granted to learn about the way these 'marketplaces' actually function. It's a series of darkpools, and everyone is just trying to adapt as fast as they can (some have done better than others). Everyone from the outside is in a reactive position -- publishers, journalists, consumers. That kind of uncertainty breeds sensationalism and superficiality.

There is much to be said for the traditional model, which--though imperfect--invests time and space in fostering individual talent that can seek out stories that transcend clickbait and an ad paradigm that values only real time, superficial coverage (or which thrusts perpetual precarity on anyone with a modicum of ambition).

[SeeGeeWhy]

I really love podcasts and am totally on board with the patron model that many of them are starring to adopt (like Sam harris and Dan Carlin). When I think of local writers that I'd personally pay for longform text or interview content the list is pretty short.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

I really love podcasts and am totally on board with the patron model that many of them are starring to adopt (like Sam harris and Dan Carlin). When I think of local writers that I'd personally pay for longform text or interview content the list is pretty short.

Podcasts are a prime example of the axiom that you get what you pay for. Sifting through 1:47 of babbling to get to the 20 minutes of content is a poor allocation of time.

As we move to a largely amateur model of delivering news and entertainment, it has become evident what we lose when we lose professionalism. Editing requires time and skill that creators often lack. And yet it's not a rewarding enough activity that skilled people will do it for free. So very few podcasts are edited. Podcasts like Carlin's are the exception to the norm.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I disagree with this. It seems pretty clear that the majority of people have now adapted to a new society where you simply don't pay for things that people used to pay for, news and journalism being a major part of this shift.

People aren't waving their money looking for some mythical format that is being missed, they're just settling for less quality on free platforms because as a society we don't value what we used to.

People say these "dinosaurs" need to adapt like they're not seeing what's happening. The reality is there's very little actual consumer money to be had these days in news and journalism. There's tons of smart people in these industries, it's not like they're all a bunch of dummies while the smart message board folk have things figured out.

People don't have the expendable income they once used to have to throw at things like a newspaper subscription as well.

For most people it's just not a choice on what to spend their money on. If I want to get the trash rag vancouver sun delivered to my door 5 days a week it will cost me $30 bucks a month.

[heep223]

Most traditional sports media can be replicated by a bot. Vast majority is just opinion anyways - we have plenty of those here on CP

Hard hitting, interesting and revealing journalism will remain. And people will continue to pay for it, delivered through alternative channels. But the days of paying for mediocre content are over. It really has forced existing media to up their game or perish. Which I see as a good thing but that's probably a contrarian view because people love yelling at clouds and opining about the good old days.