Submitted by Nathan J Comp on Thu, 2008-02-07 12:54.
The Capital Times should be applauded for a bold approach to increasing its readership both in print and online. It's a weird idea, yes, but daily newspapers aren't going to survive if they keep making half-hearted attempts to bolster readership, a.k.a. the bottomline.
Come April 26, Madison will no longer have a daily afternoon paper, but that doesn't make Madison somehow less of a place. T.S. Eliot once said (or wrote) that tradition without intelligence isn't worth having. Expecting the publishing regimen of a not-much-read afternoon daily to persist out of tradition isn't an intelligent approach to newspapering in the 21st Century.
The Capital Times may be published less frequently and in different formats, but poo-pooing these changes shouldn't presuppose the paper's quality is preordained to diminish. The paper needs to be re-introduced to the community it serves, reasserting its authority as a news source. So long as its crusading spirit (and readership) remains intact, that's the only tradition that should matter.
Some Wild Speculation (from a TCT stringer)
The Capital Times should be applauded for a bold approach to increasing its readership both in print and online. It's a weird idea, yes, but daily newspapers aren't going to survive if they keep making half-hearted attempts to bolster readership, a.k.a. the bottomline.
Come April 26, Madison will no longer have a daily afternoon paper, but that doesn't make Madison somehow less of a place. T.S. Eliot once said (or wrote) that tradition without intelligence isn't worth having. Expecting the publishing regimen of a not-much-read afternoon daily to persist out of tradition isn't an intelligent approach to newspapering in the 21st Century.
The Capital Times may be published less frequently and in different formats, but poo-pooing these changes shouldn't presuppose the paper's quality is preordained to diminish. The paper needs to be re-introduced to the community it serves, reasserting its authority as a news source. So long as its crusading spirit (and readership) remains intact, that's the only tradition that should matter.