Dearborn’s Deepsaidwhat? WDIV ‘Flashpoint’ Guest Sunday
What’s the future hold for community newspapers? That’s the topic of discussion this Sunday morning on WDIV’s Flashpoint that airs 10 a.m. on Channel 4.
As a former Detroit News writer and blogger for four years with Deepsaidwhat.com, I was invited to be one of the guests on Sunday’s program.
The Ann Arbor News may have closed and the company that owns the Dearborn Press & Guide just emerged from Chapter 11 but not all local papers are in trouble.
The topic is a timely one and worth watching if you have time on Sunday.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I watched it. Good job Said. You should have your own Cable Show as I think you perform really good in from of the camera.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Said
You didn’t get hardly any air time.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:09 am
You did look very professional! Nice to hear from Candymanpat again too.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:14 am
The show was pretty informative, but you seemed intimidated, you hardly said anything.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The same question can be asked of local radio and television stations. Satellite radio, podcasting and iTunes have made every listener a programmer; and DVR technology allows TV viewers to be programmers as well. Those media, like community newspapering, have changed forever.
But, what hasn’t changed is the consumer’s appetite for news, information and entertainment. All that’s changing is the delivery method.
From Royal Oak to Redford, and Dearborn to Downriver, local residents still want news about their municipal governments, their schools and their neighborhoods. They want news about their kids’ sports teams (including U6 soccer!), and they want to see their hometown celebrations recorded and shared.
What does the future hold for community newspapers? The same as it holds for any media – and any of us for that matter – evolution! Town criers spread news and information by reading it in the town square until the development of movable type signaled the dawn of a new age of information sharing – the printed page! (… and the advance of education made reading the next “big thing” …). With the dawn of the “newspaper age,” I’ll bet most of those criers found jobs as reporters.
Electronic “newspapers” don’t mean an end to trustworthy, believable reporting, if the same (local) news organizations responsible for print have the vision to evolve their products, delivery and business models.
Do I like it all? Heck no, I’m old. And worse, I’m an old newspaperman. But getting the local news is what’s most important to me, so if I’m booting up to get it, rather than retrieving it from my doorstep, well – I can learn to live with that. And for my neighbors who don’t have a computer, well maybe I’ll print it out and read it to them in the town square.