Katherine Ludwig has an important feature in this week’s C-Ville Weekly about what lies ahead for our newspaper of record. There’s a genuine danger that the Daily Progress will cease to exist because of the unfortunate synchronicity of Media General being run by dart-throwing chimps and the severe recession. Media General’s stock is in the tank, they seem to make the worst possible decision at every turn, and they’ve shown a willingness to hack away at the Progress in the name of profitability. Though the company doesn’t reveal the profitability of individual newspapers, the Progress is almost certainly strongly in the black, but Media General is looking out for their entire portfolio of hundreds of newspapers and other media properties. They don’t have Charlottesville’s best interests at heart, and if they can bring up their stock price by taking the Progress down to a thrice-weekly paper, or eliminating it entirely, don’t doubt that they’ll do it.
Ludwig talked to some Progress alumni (Bob Gibson and Wayne Mogielnicki, notably) to get their take on what lies ahead. Mogielnicki makes the important point that C’ville isn’t exactly lacking for media outlets, and that’s a considerable change in the past few years. A decade ago we had NBC-29, C-Ville Weekly, The Observer, The Progress, and WINA. Now we’re practically drowning in media outlets, although I’d argue that the most valuable work—investigative coverage, FOIA work, etc.—is coming from our two weeklies and (decreasingly) The Daily Progress, with the rehashing of press releases and the show-up-and-record-something coverage of the others being shown up by Charlottesville Tomorrow. As the Progress withers, the weeklies are muscling in, and impressively.
The big question, one that Ludwig never gets into seriously, is the one with no answer: What would Charlottesville media look like without the Progress? What functions does it perform that would need to be replaced? Is any media outlet prepared to take that on? Do we need a daily print publication, or can an online-only outlet fill that role? These are tough questions without clear answers, but this town has had a daily newspaper for most of its history, if we suddenly find its tasks undone, we might quickly come to regret not having collectively planned ahead.
Finally, Ludwig (and C-Ville Weekly) deserves credit for writing a snark-free, fair analysis of the state of a major competitor. It would be easy for the paper to have argued that a daily is unnecessary, or taken shots at the Progress for some of its lower moments, but instead they published an even-handed analysis that should start a community-wide discussion about what lies ahead for the Progress.
Charlottesville still has a daily newspaper? Who knew!
Here in our house, we canceled our subscription to the Progress years ago and only glance at the headlines online every morning. Instead, we get our news online and from the weekly papers and still manage to know what’s going on.
I think the wonderful thing about a local newspaper is the LOCAL news. We like to read about local high school athletes (in all sports), about local restaurants and what they are doing and other local news that is not covered in the Washington Post or the New York Times. We do not like reading Hilda Lee’s encyclopedic articles on the history of garlic or whatever. She doesn’t even live in Charlottesville! Why not give that space to a local writer who can write about LOCAL food topics?
I hope the DP will survive. I have a subscription and have for the past many, many years. I enjoy holding a newspaper in my hands. It’s just something about holding the printed word in a newspaper in your hands and enjoying it at your leisure. I will also miss the weekly grocery ads and the sunday paper for the once in awhile coupons, which I use religously when shopping.
I also used to have a daily subscription to the RTD, but that got so expensive I had to drop it. I miss the RTD and I will feel the same way if the DP is lost.
Just my .02 for what its worth.
Sentiment for and against DP aside, the Ludwig piece was really way above average for C-Ville Weekly. Hope to see more good writing like this in the future.
With all due respect to the host of this site, I don’t see any outlet offering the comprehensive coverage that the DP does. Sure, we get frustrated with it from time to time, but who is going to cover high school sports? Murder trials? Government? U.Va.? Some outlets might pick up stories here and there, but certainly not at the volume of a daily newspaper.
Make fun of it now, but you’re going to miss the DP when it’s gone.
National News? Online for free.
Local News? Online for free.
Editorial? Online for free.
Grocery Coupons? Online for free.
Classifieds? Online for free.
Event Calendars? Online for free.
Comics? Online for free.
Sports? Online for free.
Sudoku? Online for free.
Did I miss anything? Is there anything in a newspaper that’s not available online for free? In fact, oftentimes there’s MORE available online as local outlets will combine video and/or photo slideshows to go with stories.
I haven’t had a newspaper subscription for quite some time and find that I’m just as aware, if not more, of both national and local news as the average person.
And if I want to hold the news in my hands, I have a printer. Of course, if I print ALL the news, it would be much more expensive than a newspaper, but I do selectively print things out to read later or away from the computer and it works just fine.
We used to have the Pony Express, but advancements in society made it pointless. So, too, will be the fate of newspapers as we currently know them.
Cow,
Please point me to the place where I can get all of that on one site. Better yet, please point me to the site that offers daily coverage of local high school and community sports. Where — apart from the Daily Progress site — can you find local obits? Who else covered the two local murder trials yesterday? (And don’t give me the radio and TV sites; their stories offer no depth.)
National News? Online for free.
Local News? Online for free.
”
Editorial? Online for free.
Grocery Coupons? Online for free.
Classifieds? Online for free.
Event Calendars? Online for free.
Comics? Online for free.
Sports? Online for free.
Sudoku? Online for free.
”
I think it is important for us web savvy tech minded folk to remember that there is still a significant portion of the local population that is not online.
Old fashioned ink on paper is their main connection to the outside world.
How about the Rockwellian image of the paper boy tossing papers up on the porch? Goneski!
The Daily Progress isn’ snarky, is family friendly in its use of language and isn’t elitist written for the well off as the Hook and C’ville Weekly are. Do we want news only for a certain percentage of the population and reinforce C’ville’s elitist, exclusive image as a city?
Oh, I’m not about to argue with you on that point. 50% of the stories on this website come from the Progress, as they have since day 1. This isn’t a primary news source, and I don’t intend for it to be.
You’re making a rational individual argument against subscribing to the Daily Progress. But that has nothing to do with its value as an entity. That news is online for free because the paper gathers that news and puts it there. If the Progress ceases to exist, then they will cease to put it online for you to read for free.
In this context—and, soon, in most contests—”newspaper” does not mean “pulped dead tress with ink on them containing news.” “Newspaper” means “a news-gathering entity that filters and disseminates the information of relevance to their readership.” The fact that our local papers currently do so on print says absolutely nothing about the social function of that entity.
“the Progress is almost certainly strongly in the black”
Any indication why this might be true? I don’t have any subscription rates or revenue numbers, so I don’t necessarily doubt that it could be true, but wonder why you seem so certain.
And having more media outlets is a good thing, in my opinion. I couldn’t care less about the copypasta aspect of it, but in depth reporting is always helpful. Maybe (if the C-VILLE piece didn’t) could come up with a list of “big” stories “broken” by the Progess’ intrepid reporters…
The DP (really Media General) demonstrated how little they care about the community when they removed their archives last year. Archiving news is one of, in my opinion, a news organization’s primary functions.
They abdicated their responsibility when they made this decision and ceased being that much more relevant.
If they would focus on local, they would likely survive, but much as the local employees try, MG insists on repackaging national news.
Jim,
You have voiced that criticism in the past and it is certainly legitimate.
I would like to point out, again, there was no deliberate decision to dump the online archive. Our old CMS was broken and older articles were irretrievable.
If there was an easy way to get them back it would be done. Right now the only options are to retype older articles by hand or hire a very expensive OCR service.
If somebody is doing research and needs specific info please contact me (see below) and I will do my best to dig it up.
email: mrosenberg@dailyprogress.com
twitter: @dailyprogress
phone: 434-964-5473
I am not a huge fan of the Progress, but we are all missing so much but not having something tangible to grab. Interspace is simply disconnecting us from so many things. Rather smell the painting when I look at, rather feel the bass when I listen to the music, I want to be able to spill my coffee when I read the morning news without having to worry about shorting out my rectangle. I think we all miss a lot these days and are all pissed off about it. Get out and talk to people, leave your PC and TV alone.
Granted the Progress isn’t the best daily, but come on – the weekly usually only have one decent and if we’re lucky, two decent articles each week. I’m sure they’re making good money and are successful but it often looks like a grocery store rag with 50% plus ads.
I read 2-3 papers a day plus browse online 3-5 other papers. We might not recognize the news landscape in two to three years.
Re Anonymous, @ Jul 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am –
I’ve never understood why weeklies insist on including “naughty words.” (I think this phenomenon is pretty widespread amongst weeklies, as I’ve seen it in nearly every city where I’ve read a weekly.) Those words don’t offend me, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poTA34hKbZw (NSFW, but SF Anthrax fans), but they certainly do offend a certain chunk of the potential audience, and I can’t imagine they help attract some other potential audience of any size remotely near the potentially offended audience’s size. Any editor with an ounce of business sense would bounce all but the most news-necessary (e.g., inside a particularly important quotation) “naughty words.”
I guess they think it gives them a certain edge, but those words stop giving any edge of importance around age 10. (That said, again see the anthrax song, so I guess the edge lasts through one’s thrash metal phase, and then persists through one’s reminiscing about thrash metal, too.)
Beg to differ with you on this Waldo:
“The Daily Progress, with the rehashing of press releases and the show-up-and-record-something coverage of the others being shown up by Charlottesville Tomorrow.”
For in-depth reporting that includes FOIA’s and investigative journalism, that last year won the Hook the top journalism award in the state, I’d say hands down that weekly has got other publications beat, including Charlottesville Tomorrow, for giving us more than the party line and digging up the “facts” of local stories that give the unheard public a true voice in local affairs and ultimately influences the way decisions are being made by our elected officials . A few examples, the softball fields at McIntire, the wading pool, the dredging information, the solid waste story, and many more. I don’t see any other publication in our community consistently doing this type of investigative journalism.
I think you need to reread that sentence in the original blog entry–we’re agreeing. :) I wrote:
To rephrase, the investigative journalism and more serious reporting is coming from the weeklies and the Progress, while the other publications tend to focus on responding to press releases and showing up at announced events and recording them, with the latter function being done better by Charlottesville Tomorrow than by traditional media outlets.
I hope that makes more sense.
Any indication why this might be true? I don’t have any subscription rates or revenue numbers, so I don’t necessarily doubt that it could be true, but wonder why you seem so certain.
For a couple of reasons. First because media conglomerates balance their business model on the backs of small-town newspapers like the Progress. They dump lots of money into their big papers, losing money on them, and make it up on the local papers. Media General is definitely of this model, or so it’s said. The second reason is that the Progress is a pretty lean operation, their ad rates are pretty high, and they don’t seem to be hurting for advertisers. I might only work for a small quarterly magazine, but to my eye, they seem like they should be heathily profitable. If they weren’t making money (long-term, not necessarily in a given quarter), I imagine Media General would cut them loose without hesitation.
1.) Obituaries/Death Notices.
If the Progress goes away they aren’t online.
2.) Wedding Announcements.
3.) Legal Notices.
The stuff that always gets buried in the classified section but is published because it’s required by law somewhere.
I’m sorry to keep bringing this up, but does anyone know of a good Web site for local high school sports? Jerry Miller used to have one, but it did not offer much game coverage — mostly profiles and features, many of them written by less-than-professional writers.
TheSabre.com offers pretty good U.Va. coverage, so the Progress would be less missed on that beat.
wina.com sometimes has HS sports, although usually only the major ones and without detailed box scores. I too still get the paper delivered but will probably soon cancel. I agree with others, there is a need for online obits and HS sports; most everything else is available via other sources.
Online obituries is just sad considering the age of the people who read them most who are less online and even younger folks I think want a copy to hold in their hand when a loved one dies. Online will never be the same, death is not temporary, it deserves print.
Agree that there is nothing like a newspaper you can hold in your hand while you are sipping your morning coffee. But the DP has gone do far downhill. Being acquired by Media General was the worst thing that ever happened to the paper.
Granted, the Worrell ownership had its flaws, but they did have ties in the community and actually cared about to an extent. Nows its all bean counters in Richmond or wherever they are.
A locally-owned daily, emphasizing local stories-be nice if that would happen, but not likely to.
I don’t think I’ve seen the word “advertising” mentioned anywhere. The weeklies must be licking their chops at the prospect of all that print ad revenue possibly coming their way.
The Daily Progress is one of the worst papers I’ve ever seen. Other papers from smaller towns are often much better in terms of depth of content and professional standards of design and editing. I’ve produced parodies of three different newspapers, and think it’d be pretty hard to satirize the Progress any more than it already does on its own.
Worse, it’s a poor reflection on this community, which explains why a relatively small town like this is supporting two identically-targeted weeklies.
Politically, the DP spews its corporate oligarch’s viewpoints… even endorsing Jim Gilmore in the last election… and there’s virtually no connection with local citizen views. The best feature I’ve found is the occasional report on where the speed cops are concentrating, otherwise I find it hard to trust the DP to be free of bias.
As for print vs the Internet, I’m not entirely certain there’s no demand for a daily paper… I’d gladly pay for home delivery of a good local paper. But the real issue is not print vs web, it’s supporting journalism itself. Until web news sources are operating in the black, there’s no way to pay the folks that report the news. Right now, that support only comes from print distribution models, as archaic and inefficient as they happen to be. Web sites are either press-owned or aggregates that don’t pay for the content they package.
Media General is run the way GM was run for years… cutting corners, stuffing their pockets at the top level while starving development and coasting on a monopoly position that insults readers who are given no alternative but canceling their subscriptions.
One of the best local papers is the Crozet Gazette, with a tight local focus, responsible editorial standards and real community involvement without trying to be ironic or hip. Nothing against the Hook (with an excellent record of investigative reporting… especially Courtenay Stuart’s work) or Cville, but the Gazette is a classic small-town newspaper that knows it’s part of the local fabric. I wish it was better organized and presented better, but that’s not the point here.
I’ve “heard” that Media General is planning to shut down the DP, and just include a Charlottesville supplement into the Times Dispatch for local advertising revenue… so if you think it can’t get any worse, just hold onto your hat. We could be about to end up as a suburb of Richmond.
That’s an awfully interesting possibility that I never considered. There’s really no reason why the Progress couldn’t be the “Charlottesville” section of the RT-D, at least from Media General’s perspective. If it would allow them to reduce the Progress to 3-5 employees, working in a satellite office here, that would probably do the trick for them. OTOH, doing that would require taking a pretty big hit on page count which, in turn, means taking a big hit on revenue. But if it’s ultimately a money-saver—if the net profits increase as a result, whether in real dollars or as a rate of return in investment—then that’s all that Media General is considering.
It is truly unfortunate that the DP is not doing more to save itself. I believe there is market to tap here locally. Like others have stated, the high school sports have a lot of stories to offer that would bring more readers. When I was a child, everyone of my Little League baseball and football game’s highlights were in the local paper. The DP didn’t even cover the Little League City Championship until the championship game. Covering these types of topics turns on a new generation of readers to the paper.
I’ve never understood why weeklies insist on including “naughty words.”
I suppose for the same reason urban Coloradans wear cowboy hats, as a nod to their fast-vanishing history. Weeklies used to be “underground papers”, then “alternative papers”, before they became containers of essentially whatever would bring in enough revenue to sustain their give-away-for-free business model. (You didn’t see page after page of real estate ads and reviews in the original L.A. Free Press duirng the ’60s, needless to say.) So throwing in the f-word here and there makes a weekly seem still sort of “underground”, I guess.
Hmmm…other than Legal Notices & Obituaries, I’m not sure what the DP provides that isn’t covered elsewhere. I’ll be sad about it’s passing, but nowhere near enough to subscribe. Media General is truly horrific – at least editorially.