Thursday, December 14, 2017
El Segundo City Staff Order LA Times to Pay Up or Remove News Stands
Last week, a noticed a number of signs on news racks along Sepulveda in the city of El Segundo. The notices informed the public that the news racks were out of compliance with municipal code. Every news organization that owns a rack must obtain a permit and pay a fee.
In the past, this process was quite contentious, since municipalities didn't want massive numbers of news racks cluttering up the sidewalks. They opened up a lottery system every day for which newspapers would go where, or if they would get a news rack for that day at all.
Because of rapid advances in technology and communications, news racks are going away, and most media companies are staving off print media to go directly into digital. Some of the news racks have been long abandoned, covered in graffiti and rust from misuse and neglect. I've seen them many times because of the walks I take down that street and in the El Segundo area.
It's stunning how the Los Angeles Times has neglected their own news stands, including one station under the Green Line station on the corner of Aviation and Imperial Highway. People aren't reading the Times anymore, or at least they don't want to read the print version. One of the three at this public meeting informed me that they get a free copy of the Sunday edition of the Times! The media company needs to keep their distribution numbers high so that advertisers continue to work with them!
It doesn't look as if the LA Times is going to be in charge or in print much longer. How long with everyday reader continue to tolerate left-wing bias, anti-conservative smears, and distortions of local as well as statewide news and events?
What a telling development, that the Los Angeles Times has turned into a dead-beat organization, refusing to even pay their permit fees for the news racks in local cities!
Didgital news is obviously superior to printed newspaper. Instant news vs. hours or day old news. Didgital cataloging or storage/archive is superior (virtually unlimited) compared to limited available reliable storage/accountability with paper products (destroyed, ruin, misplaced, Etc). Consumer cost is next to nothing with didgital and no guilt associated with discarding or worrying about pileups of paper. Environmental concerns associated with paper products is obviously HUGE too. I imagine (no source just my bias opinion/guess) is that the paper (wood/tree) product could easily be enough to build numerous homes or other structures everyday.
ReplyDeleteSuggestion to big newspapers, i.e., San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. Is to offer subscription for free or virtually free. Perhaps a selection of a dozen or so nationally recognized papers for a nominal cost of $1 - $5. I'm sure the revenue could be made up in advertisement to offset any paper subscriptions.
At any event, digital rules and is here to stay (not a fad or pipe dream). Business models must change and adapt otherwise become the Blockbusters (brick-and-mortar video stores) of tommorow. You don't have to be a genius to connect the dots here. The writing is in the fine print. Digital versus print. No brainer.