Results tagged “newspaper” from DesMoinesIst
At this very moment, the National Weather Service has flash flood warnings in effect for Clarke, Adams, Union, Taylor, Ringgold, and Decatur counties. Flash flood warnings are a pretty big deal, since they represent immediate threats to life and property. But even though more than 45,000 people live in those six counties (at least according to the Census figures), live online news coverage of the area is difficult to find. Clarke County has the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune, which has a pleasant-looking site, but no information on flooding anywhere to be found. The Adams County Free Press only appears online in historical archives. Union County has the Afton Star-Enterprise (not to be found on the Internet) and the Creston News-Advertiser, which, like Osceola's paper, has a nice-looking website (thanks to its Illinois parent company), but no news about the flooding.
Moving into Taylor County, the Bedford Times-Press has no coverage of the floodwaters, and the Lenox Time Table appears to be AWOL online. Ringgold County has the Diagonal Progress, with some nice photos of Diagonal but no news content, and the Mount Ayr Record-News, whose site is down at the moment. And in Decatur County, neither the Lamoni Chronicle nor the Leon Journal-Reporter has an online presence.
Considering how the Des Moines Register has abandoned all but the "Golden Circle" around the metro, it's no surprise that the paper appears to have nothing on the flooding story either -- nor do any of the other metro media outlets.
It's really not a blame situation: Times are tough, and small-town newspapers are often run on a shoestring. But in many places, the stories that really need to be covered in real-time (like flooding) are being missed online, where it would seem reasonable to turn first.
Moving into Taylor County, the Bedford Times-Press has no coverage of the floodwaters, and the Lenox Time Table appears to be AWOL online. Ringgold County has the Diagonal Progress, with some nice photos of Diagonal but no news content, and the Mount Ayr Record-News, whose site is down at the moment. And in Decatur County, neither the Lamoni Chronicle nor the Leon Journal-Reporter has an online presence.
Considering how the Des Moines Register has abandoned all but the "Golden Circle" around the metro, it's no surprise that the paper appears to have nothing on the flooding story either -- nor do any of the other metro media outlets.
It's really not a blame situation: Times are tough, and small-town newspapers are often run on a shoestring. But in many places, the stories that really need to be covered in real-time (like flooding) are being missed online, where it would seem reasonable to turn first.
The Des Moines Register is laying off a dozen staff members and reducing its Washington bureau. The long-time farm editor is going, too. The Register was once a prominent newspaper, owned by the Cowles family and operated profitably for generations under their private control. When the paper was sold to Gannett in 1985, it had more Pulitzer Prizes in its name than any newspaper but the New York Times.
Unfortunately, it would seem that Gannett doesn't really know how to operate in a competitive environment. Newspapers long had a tendency towards natural monopoly on local advertising, since the first press run is the only one that costs (that is, all the hard work is in gathering the news...not in printing additional copies of the same paper). But the Internet is clobbering any newspaper that doesn't bring something extra to the table. The news itself is no longer unique; it's how that news is delivered that will determine whether a newspaper, website, or other medium will succeed.
And getting rid of a whole bunch of senior writers hardly seems like the right answer.
Unfortunately, it would seem that Gannett doesn't really know how to operate in a competitive environment. Newspapers long had a tendency towards natural monopoly on local advertising, since the first press run is the only one that costs (that is, all the hard work is in gathering the news...not in printing additional copies of the same paper). But the Internet is clobbering any newspaper that doesn't bring something extra to the table. The news itself is no longer unique; it's how that news is delivered that will determine whether a newspaper, website, or other medium will succeed.
And getting rid of a whole bunch of senior writers hardly seems like the right answer.
It's easier to tell who lost the local-news race to cover the Barton Solvents explosion story than to tell who won. While WHO-TV, KCCI-TV, WOI-TV, and the Register were tripping all over themselves to cover the story like it was the Second Coming (WHO-TV was still all-Barton-all-the-time for the first 12 minutes of the 10:00 newscast), nary a word about the story was to be found on the KDSM website, even after 10:30. WOI-TV didn't win a lot of points by leading online with an AP version of the story. The Register made some baby steps towards using some real multimedia tools with a Google Map link, though it's hard to be impressed after seeing how KPBS in San Diego took Google Maps to a new level in covering the wildfires. They caught decent video of some of the explosions, but it felt a little naked without any reporters doing voice-over narratives...that, of course, being the difference between news and data. In an echo of Good News I and II, the Register's original news-planes, they even got some aerial photos of the scene...but, well, where's the aerial video? Even cell phones come with video cameras now; they could've really shown that they understood multimedia by taking a Motorola Razr along and catching some of those fireballs from the air. Then again, Chopper 13 doesn't appear to have been deployed, which itself is peculiar, so perhaps the Register won the air war anyway.
