Will Chicago Residents Turns to the New York Times for Local News?

The New York Times, which announced plans to boost local coverage in San Francisco, where the San Francisco Chronicle may either cease publication entirely or shift to online-only mode, has announced that it will boost its coverage of local Chicago coverage.

You can read about the Times' plan for San Fransisco here: Will Bay Area Residents Turn to the New York Times for Local News?

In picking Chicago, the Times is making an interesting selection. The Chicago Tribune is facing financial problems (if you want to get technical about it, the Trib's in bankruptcy), but the Chicago Sun-Times seems to be doing okay.

Why Chicago?

Could it be because that's the President's home town? I think he'd read the Times anyway.

Could it be because Chicago was a contender for the 2016 Summer Olympics? Don't think so.

Ok, I'm not sure why -- though I've always liked Chicago.

But here's what is interesting: The Times plans for its Chicago bureau to increase its local coverage, and then to "turn the production over to a local partner." In other words, outsourcing content development to a local provider (the content to be distributed by the Times), which means the Times' brand values.

Also, what's not clear is how the Times will make its bet pay off. Even when advertising recovers, it's not likely to reach pre-Great Recession levels. So if local Chicago advertisers won't support it, you can't count on new Chicagoland subscribers, too. They pay only a small portion of the freight.

So -- a lot of questions about how and why the Times is going to be able to compete locally in other markets. During the '70s recession, the Times famously doubled-down its bet, expanding coverage when everyone else cut back.

It will be interesting to see how this bet turns out.

Prediction: The Associated Press will Consider Substantial Changes to its Model in 2009

A number of papers have given the AP notice that they want to cancel their participation in the AP. Most of these are smaller papers – like the Bakersfield Californian, Idaho Falls Post Register, Yakima Herald-Republic and Wenatchee World – seeking to renegotiate down the fees they pay. But some big papers like the Tribune Co. (parent of the LA Times and Chicago Tribune) and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (no relation) have also given notice.

On the one hand, many papers seem to rely on wire service coverage even more in 2009, thanks to closing bureaus in Washington, DC, and foreign capitals. On the other hand, the renewed focus on local coverage means that one article appearing multiple times no longer makes sense. After all, when searching on a topic on Google News, how many links to the same article do you need?

All this means is that the AP needs to re-evaluate who it serves and how it serves them.

Pop Psych at Chicago Trib's "Pop Machine" Column -- what's the fuss?

In his "Pop Machine" column in the Chicago Tribune, Mark Caro wrote about Steven Spielberg and some movie that you may have heard about. The column was called "Indiana Jones and That Spielberg Ending," and the thesis is that "Almost every movie, no matter the genre, explores the same issue with a similar resolution: the repairing of the fractured family." It's available here.

I thought it was a decent column, and that his points were good ones.

Yet there were a lot of posts that seemed to think Caro's thesis was controversial and wrong.

I don't get the anger or fuss.

Sometimes I think that's what's wrong with blogging and commenting on other's blogs: it gives people the opportunity to rant, pointlessly.

You may consider this posting to be pointless, too.

On the other hand, it gives me the chance to mention Indiana Jones, and thereby may increase my visibility on Technorati.