Big Web sites can’t match newspapers

Here is The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s take on the sale of Knight Ridder and the future of newspapers in an Internet world:
“Both McClatchy and Knight Ridder remain profitable, stable companies that produce plenty of cash flow. The sale of Knight Ridder was precipitated not by financial distress inside the company but by a large institutional shareholder looking to cash out and avoid a loss on his shareholdings. Newspapers may not get the kind of stock-market valuations on present profits that the big Web sites do. But there is not yet one of those sites, as far as we are aware, that currently does what quality papers have done for years — independently gather, edit and supply reliable news and analysis.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

9 Comments

  1. Joe Williams
    Posted March 15, 2006 at 8:14 am | Permalink

    You’re right. They just re-hash the news that was already reporting.

    Although the Drudge Report and the Smoking Gun have done their share of breaking news, the newspapers still do the best in quality reporting.

  2. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted March 15, 2006 at 8:51 am | Permalink

    Are real blogs among the “websites” counted by WSJ?

    Because the real blogosphere is where we have to go when we want to watch people:

    “independently gather, edit and supply reliable news and analysis.”

    Sounds like someone doesnt like the truth being told. Isnt competition the mantra of such conservative rags?

    Does the WSJ hear the bloggers gaining on them?

  3. PL
    Posted March 15, 2006 at 7:30 pm | Permalink

    Bloggers haven’t had much of an impact yet. But people are slowly catching on.

    A big independent news gathering powerhouse is just now gaining speed–places like Brad Blog, antiwar.com, truthout, and even links to newspapers like theindependent.uk are giving people a lot of options on breaking stories like voting machines that don’t work and real stories from Iraq–unfiltered through the corporate news machine.

    WSJ is whistling past the graveyard trying to ignore the headstone with its name on it.

  4. PL
    Posted March 15, 2006 at 7:32 pm | Permalink

    BTW, did everybody see the mean-spirited dance that Cal Thomas did on Tom Fox’s grave today in The Eagle?

    Is there anything so despicable that The Eagle won’t run it if it has Cal Thomas’s by line?

    No way is my money going to support that man . . .

  5. KansasClassicLiberal
    Posted March 16, 2006 at 3:03 am | Permalink

    What are some examples of the “big web sites” this article refers to?

  6. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted March 16, 2006 at 8:33 am | Permalink

    Has anyone read “Crashing the Gates”? I saw Kos on Olberman last night. We have seen the future, and it is us!

  7. ProudLib
    Posted March 16, 2006 at 8:48 am | Permalink

    KCL–salon.com and slate.com have been pretty successful.

    Neither one has a print edition.

  8. KansasClassicLiberal
    Posted March 16, 2006 at 12:59 pm | Permalink

    Salon and Slate websites: I never thought of them as “news” sites in the same way that I think of the websites for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, or even Kansas.com, for that matter.

    I am not hopeful for the future of newspapers. Given young peoples’ declining interest in news, the wider variety of outlets for what passes for news, the new and varied opportunities that advertisers have for targeting and reaching customers, that quality journalism costs a lot to produce — it’s a sad picture. The Eagle’s past editor Davis Merritt explains much better than I can in his recent book “Knightfall: Knight Ridder And How The Erosion Of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy At Risk.”

  9. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted March 17, 2006 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    I make fun regularly of the MSM, but KCL, I agree with you. Newspapers print more depth of stories, sidebars, etc. More than just a soundbite, which I fear drives broadcast and lots of internet news. You also cant switch the channel on a paper, so you might accidently get exposed to news you dont agree with. Unlike fox, et al.

    The good thing about internet news is that you can read all the extremes on both sides, and then pick the truth out of the middle. And the fringes of both sides are not always wrong.

    Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Look at ed and ian!