Diggings

A blog by Toby Dayton

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Archive for June, 2009

More Evidence Of The Obvious: Online Classifieds Are Soaring But The Dailies Are Struggling

Here is the last day (finally) of cleaning out my backlog of stories relating to the dailies, traditional media, new media, advertising, etc. Some of these headlines are slightly outdated, but so be it.
• Village Voice Media is stepping in to capitalize on the opportunity completely missed by the dailies in creating a local advertising [...]

More Chaos Surrounding The Dailies

As I indicated yesterday, I have a huge backlog of daily newspaper, media, and advertising news items that have accumulated over the past few weeks and am trying to get through them in as few blog posts as possible, so here’s day two of cleaning out the closet…
• McClatchy is scrambling on multiple fronts to [...]

Answers For Newspapers Are Starting To Emerge

Taking a few weeks off from posting the latest headlines concerning the plight of the dailies has created a massive backlog of items to list. I am not sure if the pace of noteworthy events is accelerating or if it just seems that way due to my short hiatus, but I have about 3 blog [...]

Oracle of Omaha Offers Opinions On Obvious

The headline is not a critique of Warren Buffett in any way, I simply could not think of a word for newspapers that started with an ‘O’. In any event, Warren Buffett weighed in on the state of daily newspapers this past weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting and articulated about as grim an [...]

Denver Joins The Frontrunners

In the great horse race to see which large U.S. city will first lose its daily newspaper altogether, Denver has now taken a quantum leap forward into the frontrunner pack with the announcement today that EW Scripps is shuttering the Rocky Mountain News. While the city still has the Denver Post, that paper is in [...]

Daily Newspapers Have Finally Hit Zero

While everyone knew that it was only a matter of time, it is still remarkable to witness the incredible, rapidly accelerating decimation taking place in the daily newspaper industry. Like watching the demolition of a Las Vegas casino from the 50’s, the countdown on setting off the explosives laced throughout the daily newspaper industry has [...]

Who Has The Best Ideas For Saving The Dailies?

The pace of stories about appearing everywhere about the death of the dailies is reaching a fevered pitch, and everyone, it seems, has an opinion about what will and will not work to save the newspapers from an inevitable demise. The following are just a sample of the deluge of stories over the past few [...]

Even Google Is Giving Up On Newspapers

Google has a vested interest in making sure that quality journalism not only survives, but thrives in the decades ahead. CEO Eric Schmidt has identified the demise (and maybe even death) of the daily newspaper industry and the decline of journalism in general as a concern for Google. As such, the giant has to be [...]

Avista May Exit From Star Tribune Deal…

The Business Journal is reporting this afternoon that senior creditors are stepping in to take over ownership of the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a debt for equity swap that eliminates 100% of Avista’s ownership in the daily newspaper. Avista invested $100 million in the deal and financed the rest with $400 million of debt, the [...]

Star Tribune Hints At Bankruptcy

In its latest attempt to stave off the inevitable, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is demanding that its unions trim off $20 million in annual salary and cost reductions or the daily newspaper will be forced to declare bankruptcy. The company also acknowledged that Avista Capital Partners will be writing off the remaining $25 million on [...]