Horns247 Board

5 years ago, my second year of law school, we had a representative of the Dallas Morning News who said the same thing. 5-years ago it was too late for the papers to capitalize on the internet...however, I think the Dallas Morning News was one of the first to go from what was a free site to having its articles behind a pay wall.

a lot had to do with the advertising dollars. From what I understood, 5-years ago, the advertisers were not willing to pay as much to advertise online as they would in a newspaper. Plus, the newspapers started by giving away their content for free online. If they had started by issuing each subscriber a password which allowed only them to view the content, they may have been able to make the transition.

The more sources for information the better. I can think of few things made better with less competition.

The internet and the newspaper serve different purposes. The internet is where you get it first. Unfortunately, though websites are getting MUCH better- witness this place, the newspaper was where you went to get it right. Some sites will say anything just to claim to be "first". They'll then amend and re-issue reports that go 180 degrees from their first report but still claim to have been first on the scene. Newspapers don't have that kind of chance. If they attempted the same thing they'd be crucified. Also, newspaper folks are much more likely to be known figures to the public, can't hide behind a screen name and have access to the coaches on a daily basis. As a result, they got better access but also felt beholden to the people they dealt with daily on a face to face basis. Now that places like this site partner with the paper, both have improved- the websites and the paper. This, IMO, is the future.

I think it's a revenue issue. They still can't seem to reconcile whether to not to charge its readers for content, and they're (the print media) certainly light years behind other forms of media in advertising revenue.

Beyond newspapers, think about this business, guys like Garvin, Emfinger, and Dave Campbell to a degree, none of them has really evolved with the time.