RIP Rocky Mountain News
I’ve never held, in my hands, a copy of the Rocky Mountain News. I’m a tree-hugger and happy to watch the disappearance of more printed materials. BUT…I love media, and more importantly, I love people. Today we mourn the loss of an online publisher as well, not just a printed paper. And more importantly, we empathize with even more people who have lost their jobs.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the video and slideshow on the website, http://rockymountainnews.com, you must. It will tug at your heart strings. The video is hosted by a couple now unemployed, with young children. The slideshow includes photos of employees who brought their kids to work, getting the bad news with their children on their lap. It really hurts.
While printed newspapers are definitely on their way out, digital news has hit an extreme lack of innovation, with many of these news sites turning into complete commodities. They all look the same. Header, standard banner ads, list of news, maybe some video, disappointing search, and maybe some links out to other sites. The content is largely the same as the content available on competing sites. The holy grail of local continues to be elusive. I hope the news industry gets innovating, because we need to save real journalism. UGC is taking off, but it’s no replacement for news bureaus with real journalists.
Rocky Mountain News and rockymountainnews.com, rest in peace.
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2 Responses to “RIP Rocky Mountain News”
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I have to say that when you posted the link to their homepage this morning, I watched the whole thing and was very touched. Then while i was driving to work listening to NPR as usual, I heard all the most recent bad news about Citygroup and Bank of america and got really upset… why is the government helping those and the car companies so much and doesn’t do anything with all these smaller and to my opinion more important businesses? According to the government we should all be dumb (no more newspapers) and driving around in gas-gulping cars that shouldn’t even be considered an option anymore…
What a sad sad place to live…
@Francesco Interesting perspective. I think the newspapers need to fix the newspapers, but they’re up against a big challenge: a bad economy, and an online business model that doesn’t work. These sites get tremendous traffic, but advertising alone can’t keep them going on the Internet, in a world saturated with publishers. It’s a difficult time to change the model, but as more papers go out of business, the necessary changes are inevitable. Just late, but better late than never.