The San Francisco Chronicle - another casualty?

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We all have those institutions for which we feel a personal and intense bond.

The recent months have seen the domino-like collapse of so many icons, some of those are bound to mean more to us than others.

The San Francisco Chronicle fills a place in my heart that I'm only just now understanding.

As a SF-born newsie, its just always been there.

It's always been a lightning rod.

It's always been a source for cultural information as much as news. (Hail to the Pink Section)

It's always had the most cut-throat, poison-pens - next to NY - of any American sports markets. (IMHO)

Now it might be gone? Poof? Like that?

But in a way, it's like the earthquake. I have faith that the residents of SF will rebuild the paper - with the same name - the same look - same feel - same pool of writers. It will be something totally different but it will be the SF Chronicle.

Do you have a similar love affair with a institutional casualty of the economic crisis?

Weekend America, former show on NPR. Its funding was pulled. Sigh.

Per [email protected] <[email protected]>
Just months away from its 150th anniversary the owners of the Rocky Mountain News announce the paper will close. A search for a buyer was unsuccessful.

Perhaps it's not just the economy that's killing these institutions. It maybe the growth of the interet, and all the newsources available there.

I think its both and everything. I guess that's the underlying question. Will these institutions survive beyond the current corporate structure?

I predict the names and the editorial traditions of the Rocky Mountain News and San Francisco Chronicle will out-last their corporate incarnations and/or media.

On the brightside - electronic media is definitely providing more opportunities for more writers, regardless of who they know or went to college!

If newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News and San Francisco Chronicle want to remain in business - and producing newspapers is a for-profit business endeavor - their owners must come up with a new business model.

The old business model involved selling advertising space to finance overhead costs and the salaries of those who wrote the articles. Newspaper advertising space is at least ten times the cost of the banners and pop-ups we put up with on the Internet. How can a traditional newspaper hope to compete with the Internet under the old business model without cutting away 90% of its overhead and salary costs?

Some newspapers are looking to drop their "dead tree" editions and go to a fully on-line service, which can provide news updates in near real time. Most "dead tree" news outlets are limited to one edition per day, and simply can't compete with the plethora of news outlets that are just a mouse click away for the average websurfer.

"Dead tree" newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip.

Already many small town newspapers are going to three times a week "dead tree" editions, with the electronic versions updated daily. There's a newspaper company in western Nevada that controls almost all the small town papers in the area, they go by several names, but they're phasing out the tree papers in favor of electronic papers, except for the Nevada Appeal in Carson City. Even the Appeal has been cut back, but many of the state legislators (Carson City is Nevada's capital) use it as waiting room reading material, so shutting down the tree edition is problematic. I suspect that other second and third tier newspaper companies are doing the same.

I guess that's why its all so surreal. The SF Chronicle has been a leader in electronic news from the beginning (SFGate).

So, I guess the question for me is - why wouldn't someone step up to save the institution? I know the FCC rules are super strict - but seems as if some do-gooder could parse out the Chronicle electronic infrastructure, the brand, the writers, and keep it humming. Steve Jobs or some other local guy.

Ditto with the Rocky Mountain News. That's another high tech brain-trust market.

Stay tuned! I have a feeling this is just the beginning of a monstrous shift. Could be good for freelancers!