Dilbert creator Scott Adams writes a blog post, How I Saved Newspapers.
Normally I like Dilbert comics. They are witty and fun and relevant and I imagine the creator of those comics sometimes has a window into my world. When I read Scott Adams blog post about saving newspaper though I couldn’t help but think that Bottleneck Bill or some other minor character wrote the piece. Adams solution for a failing newspaper industry is called “super-local news” and relies on volunteers submitting content to newspapers… “the super-local news has to have lots of content about classrooms, Cub Scout meetings, local movies listings rated less then R, and that sort of thing.” Sounds like the internet only useless.
Adams states that this new newspaper will of course feature Dilbert comics. *sigh* I’ll just pretend I didn’t read this Scott.
Related posts:
- Detriot Newspapers Going Paperless – you’ll probably read about this in the newspaper tomorrow
- The Top 3 Reasons People Still Read A Printed Newspaper
- 20 Page Tabloid in Texas Showing The Big Newspapers How To Do It
- APT, Yahoo’s New Digital Ad Platform – Good for Newspapers?
- The Rocky Mountain News Lives… maybe
Sounds like what Gannett’s been pushing for years… all the while cutting back on space and people to make it happen. The basic problem, of course, is that the stuff volunteers submit is generally not very interesting to many people. It’s poorly written and badly photographed, except for the rare and exciting exceptions. There are good ways to integrate “citizen journalists” into news, but imagining that they can fill and sell a paper is foolish.