In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that concerns about the independence of non-profit news organizations are overblown — unless you believe that for-profit news orgs are fully independent of their advertisers.
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Brian Flaherty
Dan – Lowell Sun will soon be charging for content. Richardhowe.com has the details
Dan Kennedy
Brian: Thanks. Fits what Dean Singleton is doing nationally. Just as long as they understand what they’re doing — killing the Web site in the hopes of preserving the print edition. Ain’t nobody going to pay for online.
Patricia
Interesting tidbit about the Lowell Sun. I have also noticed that the Worcester Telegram was subscribers-only for several years, but now it’s freely available (although there is less content). What’s up with that? Farther afield in Worcester County, how is The Gardner News (http://www.thegardnernews.com/) doing with its model?
Brian Flaherty
Yeah I am a subscriber and there isn’t really a lot to the paper. They have a good political column on Sundays (which they just stopped posting to their site), local news, and some sports columnists. Other than that, it’s a lot of AP stories and high school sports.
Aaron Read
This probably more relevant to another, recent post…but does anyone remember the “Lowell Sunrise” show on WUML a few years back?
Anyone? Anyone at all? Yeah, that’s kind of my point. (heh)
Seriously, though…it does speak to how newspapers would love to own radio stations, yet the results when newspapers and radio work together is often unsatisfying and a fiscal failure.
(I don’t deny the Sunrise Show was doomed from the start for a variety of reasons, but I think my point stands)
LFNeilson
The independence question assumes that we’re talking about legit news reporting. There are so many shills out there now, many people assume that the shills are actually news people, and it cuts the credibility of all news. Independence? The shills are totally the opposite.
The lemon dealer, btw, went out of business in 1987 after the attorney general fined them half a mil for bait & switch. When the news came out on that, the first thing the dealer did was pull all ads, including the back page of the Globe every day, in two half-page ads. The fine was bad enough, but killing the ads certainly had some effect, too.
Neil
If Fox News were a responsible news operation, it would have taken Beck off the air months ago.
If Wal-Mart and Lowe’s can do what Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes won’t, then good for them. Let Glenn Beck exercise his first amendment rights like most of his ilk do – on a street corner somewhere, ranting to strangers, hoping a few passersby might toss a dollar or two into the empty coffee can at his feet.
Join the Genn Beck advertiser BOYCOTT http://www.bit.ly/1WOeXN to end Beck’s corporate sponsored race-bating and fear-mongering.