Brief snippet in Wednesday's April 8 Tribune: "Last Sun Bulletin will be published April 15" "The Tribune is ceasing publication of the Central Coast Sun Bulletin, a weekly that has served the Estero Bay communities for 78 years. . . . 'This is a painful but necessary step as we face a pronounced economic downturn,' said Tribune Publisher and President Bruce G.Ray.' . . . News and feature coverage of Morro Bay, Los Osos and Cayucos will continue to be covered in The Tribune . . . ."
Sign of the times. The L.A. Times is disappearing before our eyes, the Tribune is getting anorexic, Sun Bulletin gone . . . what's next? While loss of national newspapers and national news coverage is bad enough, a lot of that is picked up on the internet sites. But loss of strictly local community news coverage is truly bad. It has always been a supreme irony that the stuff that has the most impact on our daily lives -- local politics, local elections, local government decisions, local taxes, fees, regulations -- are often the very stuff that falls off the radar. Community newspapers are killingly hard to keep alive, yet without a strong community news source, the public is ill served. So we'd best pray for The Bay News now. Heck, pray for all the papers.
On a personal note, I'm sad to see the paper that gave birth to "Calhoun's Can(n)ons" is gone. Waaaaay back in 1990, then local section editor, Bill Morem, asked me to write a column, even thought up the name, which I gleefully and gratefully appropriated (Thanks Bill!) and with the first Jan '90 column, have been scribbling ever since.
And that's another thing that goes missing when community papers die: individual, local "voices." While most of us with computers have access to national "voices," national columnists and famous Op/Ed writers, it's the loss of our own, homegrown local voices that is most unfortunate. Both the Sun Bulletin and the Bay News were wonderful about making room for a variety of those local writers, some funny, some serious, but all authentic and with a home-grown, local voice.
That will be missed.
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15 comments:
Long Live Calhoun's Cannons!
At least you chose the correct technology...
No news is bad news.
Some have referred to the present day newspaper business as "the Dead Tree Business"
I just recently read on a real estate blog called "Trulia" that Real Estate classified advertising revenue fell a staggering 22.6% from $5.16Bn in 2006 to $3.99Bn in 2007!! Just think what it is today.
On the humorous side check out what a RE broker from 3 Oceans Real Estate in Frisco has to say. Google "3 Reasons Why Dogs Pee On Fire Hydrants And Realtors Advertise In Newspapers".
It's goinbg to be sad. How can one possibly drink coffee without a newspaper at hand???
Sure, not everyone is smiling, but we think this is great news for the real estate industry and consumers. Removing costs and shifting ad spend to more efficient means will help brokers and agents build profitable businesses and also benefit home buyers and sellers as it helps take unnecessary costs out of the process. It is fascinating to watch the Industry change so quickly before our eyes.
"If there is a significantly less expensive technology, then that technology becomes the new standard and all others fall away."
Go Blogs!
How can one possibly drink coffee without a newspaper at hand???
Same way you don't have to shovel and shoe a "hay burner"...
Mark
I assume you are a realtor when you state "we think this is great news" in your post.
I doubt very much that any of us should live so long as to see this saving passed along by realtors to the buyer.
It's like the dog peeeeng on the hydrant.
With respect to "shovel and shoe a hayburner". I am at a loss to understand what removing a stone from a horses shoe has to do with
drinking coffee without something to read!!!!!!!!
Perhaps you can enlighten me.
FOGSWAMP,
Realtor’s commissions have ceiling by statute. Anyone who doesn’t bargain with their realtor when selling or buying in this market will needlessly paying too much. It is a buyer’s market, even if you are listing your property for sale as you are paying the commission. You are “buying” a service and you can bargain…
If you can't or do not want keep up with the technology (Hayburner to Gasburner) to get your information/news, switch to novels, if you absolutely have to hold dead tree in your hands while you consume your caffeine.
Perhaps you can get yourself a Crackberry or Eyephone so can read your news on line.
You just can’t get coverage like this from a “mainstream” newspaper: Ahwiyah Point rockfall
Make sure you scroll down the page to see the pictures.
FOGSWAMP,
I hope you know to "click" on the blue words to get linked up.
One of the more serious issues that was discussed by the SF Chron's publisher on, of all things, The Colbert Report is this: Who pays for the reporters to investigate things like Watergate, or Enron's scam, or Guantanamo's torture, or run-ups to wars to local city hall bamboozlers and local scams. Most blogs take from the leg-work of AP/UPI (which is trying to figure out how to get them to pay for the info they (and google news & etc.) use). In the past, a robust newspaper supported by ads, etc. had the money to hire the reporters to spend up to a million to do an depth investigative work, work that can take a year and cost a pundle. How do you pay for that?I think a lot of people somehow think when they go on Google News or AOL News or wherever, that this information just sort of fell out of the sky for free. Somebody had to go get that information and that somebody needs to get paid for his/her work. So far, a way to make that transition hasn't been figured out yet.
Mark
Mahalo for the Ahwiyah Point Rockfall link. The pictures are awesome as were the links with more photos.
You're right, not Tribune stuff.
Pictures can help tell important parts of a story.
Sometimes words alone suffice.
HAVE to chime in here...
Buh-bye, Sun Bulletin.
What the Sun Bulletin did in 1997 was the beginning of the train wreck in Los Osos.
I reported on it at this link:
http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2005/11/solution-group-accountability-would.html
... where I write:
- - -
In the course of my extensive research on this story, I have come across only one person that has shown even the slightest bit of accountability for the situation in Los Osos.
That person -- of all people -- is Neil Farrell. Many in Los Osos and Morro Bay know Farrell as a long-time newspaper reporter in the area. He was working for the Sun Bulletin back in 1997 when that newspaper published a favorable series of reports on the Solution Group's Community Plan. The series lent the unviable, and ultimately disastrous, Community Plan much needed publicity and credibility. The editor of the Sun Bulletin at the time, Richard Palmer, lived in the prohibition zone in Los Osos. Also on staff, was current Tribune Opinion Page editor, and Los Osos resident, Bill Morem. The Sun Bulletin series would eventually play a significant role in the 1998 election that formed the Los Osos Community Services District and launched the ill-fated Community Plan.
Farrell recently told me that he now regrets working on that series of reports. I applaud him for that.
In 1997, I was the editor of the small Los Osos newspaper, The Bay Breeze (now The Bay News). I received the exact same press packet outlining the Community Plan from the marketing director of the Solution Group, Pandora Nash-Karner, as the Sun Bulletin, except I made the editorial decision to hold off publishing anything from that press packet until I could get the information confirmed by an outside source. Good thing. Almost everything in that packet would prove to be false, as the Questa Study exposed in the summer of 1998.
- - -
That link above, that I published in November, 2005, is an extremely interesting read in 2009.
"'This is a painful but necessary step as we face a pronounced economic downturn,' said Tribune Publisher and President Bruce G.Ray."
I'm so sick of the Trib's whining.
Did it ever occur to them, that if they didn't suck, people might actually want to read them?
One explicit picture and a few well chosen words: At least 1 works.
Mark,
I note with interest that Ron did not actually answer my question ("what have you done recently?") before he deleted my comment in his blog.
Presumably he could have used the opportunity to explain what he actually has done.
We must therefore conclude that he hasn't done anything that he wants to report.
I don't have a problem with doing jack-nothing ... but I do have a problem with pretending you're the wisest person on the planet when discussing the whole Los Osos sewer thing but avoiding certain topics (like the cost question) entirely.
Steve,
What are you prepared to do, except whine?
”It's a good example showing that it's worth paying attention to your buildings (and what your “building”) ahead of time."
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