This New York Times article reports that the Washington Post has ceased working on their hyperlocal news endeavor, Loudoun Extra. Apparently the upkeep of these sites was deemed “unsustainable” for the Washington Post staff. Begs to question if hyperlocal is meant to be handled by the citizens themselves.

Follow The Revival Network on Twitter! Updates both from this site but also links and opinion to other articles published throughout the day, all related to the ongoing interest in the newspaper.

Apologies for the extended vacation here at The Revival Network. We are coming back to life, with some interesting ideas in the pipeline both for the network of self-published papers as well as aggregate coverage of the current status of the newspaper globally. Keep checking back for updates!

Three stories rolling in today from the gold standard of aggregate news sites, The Huffington Post, on the current state of the newspaper. First, this video from NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who once ran the New York Times website. Schiller states her sentiments that newspapers need to be free, stating that the loss of subscriptions will free up a paper for more ad revenue.

Then, this story seen on the Financial Times website, wherein the discussion is about making the content worthy of being paid for. Seems like these two arguments are at odds with one another, with Schiller saying the content is there, let’s just make it free and the Financial Times saying the content isn’t good enough as a consumer good. Very interesting takes.

Lastly, Michael Liedtke of Huff Post brings this story of 28% of newspaper executives weighing subscription or online news fees to save the paper. The models are based on The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Idaho’s Post Register, both of which use a model of subscription to the daily paper gives the audience access to all the news content on the site. Interesting again to link to Schiller due in large part to the New York Times dropping this model years ago to allow free news to all, a service that has been beneficial to those who stay informed, but bad for business.

Steve Pearlstein, business columnist for the Washington Post, wrote an open letter / opinion piece based on the recent remarks from Warren Buffet about purchasing newspapers from around the country that are struggling. This letter is filled with interesting (if not somewhat shrewd) quotes, such as this one, “Virtually every big city daily has been losing money, advertisers and readers at an alarming rate because of a disruptive new technology — the Internet — and the current recession.” Now, the problem that I think many see with that statement is the overtone that the internet is somehow a platform that the newspaper industry views as a detriment, not an opportunity, which has been their poor thinking all along. Read the full post

Howard Kurtz, columnist for The Washington Post, released an op-ed on the industry of newspapers today that is a pretty interesting read. Primarily, it calls into question the actions — or lack there of — in the industry during the boom of the internet in he mid-to-late 90s. Of some note is this quote, pulled from the column which all should read in full:

“The people who run such companies bear a considerable share of the blame. In 1993, just before the Internet became a consumer force, I argued in a book that newspapers had become too cautious, too incremental and too dull, tailored largely for insiders. The rise of hugely profitable monopoly papers in most cities made them increasingly bland, seemingly allergic to controversy.”

Thanks again to The Media Is Dying for their unending efforts to pull in this information.

Mark Cuban, the sometimes fiery owner of the Dallas Mavericks, posted on his blog in late April about payment methods and new ways for the newspaper industry to approach its consumers. Really interesting is the comparison to Amazon, which is of course one of the hold overs and greatest survivors of the dot com bust of the late 90’s. Cuban of course is speaking candidly here, but it still has an air of new thinking to it that I think could be very beneficial to the industry. Seen via the wonderful The Media Is Dying.

A brief article from The Wall Street Journal has some insight into the current state of newspapers wherein Warren Buffet discusses the “unending losses” in the newspaper industry.

Interesting little article on the Online Journalism Blog about the readability of newspaper websites. A conundrum considering the blog’s own use of smaller text type. Of course, this was found from the purveyor of all things interesting on the internet, Erik Brandt.

Jacek Utko, a designer from Poland who specializes in newspaper design, recorded a TED talk in February of this year, where in he discusses how design can save the newspaper. Read more for video. Read the full post