On the day his newspaper published its final edition, Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple advised a gathering of Colorado journalists to focus on local news and suggested creating online content that niche audiences might pay for.
“It’s not realistic to think in this day and age that people are going to have one information source and you’re going to be it. You try, you die,” Temple told the Colorado Press Association convention on Friday.
“If you’re not experimenting, then I think you’re in trouble,” said Temple, who also held the titles of publisher and president.
The E.W. Scripps Co, which owns the News, announced on Thursday that the Friday edition would be the newspaper’s last after nearly 150 years in business.
“Goodbye, Colorado,” read the headline on a 52-page commemorative edition wrapping the regular newspaper on Friday. “STOP THE PRESSES,” read the front-page headline inside.
Mike Simonton, a bond analyst at Fitch Ratings, said a number of other newspapers could close by the end of next year, and those that survive will be focused on local contact with smaller staffs and less printed content.
Four owners of 33 US daily newspapers have sought bankruptcy protection in the past two-and-a-half months, and a number of other newspapers are up for sale.
“We think this downturn is incremental to a very severe longer-term pressure from the Internet,” Simonton said.
“Many of the newspaper groups are in dire financial situations. We believe there will be more newspaper group bankruptcies and more newspapers closing over the next two years,” he said.
Scripps said the News lost US$16 million last year. In December, the company put the News up for sale, along with its 50 percent stake in the Denver Newspaper Agency, which handled business operations for the News and its rival, the Denver Post, under a joint operating agreement (JOA). No viable buyer came forward.
Under the JOA, approved in 2001, the newspapers shared business operations while keeping their newsrooms separate. Both papers published every weekday. The Post, owned by MediaNews Group Inc, published Sunday editions while the News handled the Saturday edition.
On Friday, the Post prepared to publish a Saturday print edition for its readers and for News subscribers, who will now get the Post for the length of their subscriptions.
William Dean Singleton, chairman and publisher of the Post and CEO of MediaNews, has said he would like to keep at least 80 percent of News subscribers. The Post has hired 10 News staffers, including columnists, and is picking up features and comics that the News published.
Singleton, who is also chairman of the board of The Associated Press, has said Denver could support only one newspaper. He said on Thursday he was confident his newspaper would survive.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors announced on Friday that it was canceling its annual convention, scheduled for next month, so newspapers can save money and focus on surviving the recession.
The last time the group canceled was during the final months of World War II in 1945.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained