Comments about ‘Deseret News announces new media leadership team’

Good Bye SLLIB......your days are numbered and rendered obsolete all in the matter of Liberal Minutes!

Get newspaper PROFESSIONALS in to rescue your sinking ship. These BYU boys won't make a difference.

WOW, a newspaper or publishing group without anyone having publishing experience at the head. This has to be a first for an American daily. I wonder if the DMN, by hiring Mormon cottage industry managers isn't going to end the publishing of a newspaper you can touch, hold in your hands, buy from a rack? The message seems to be that they are going to an internet good news only format. I won't buy a biographic book from Deseret Book, because I don't care for sanizted, one dimensional looks at another human being. I wonder how many folks would go on line and read such an on-line only news format?

Did you notice none of these people have newspaper experience. Hummmmm.... I guess DN doesn't want to be a print paper for local/state issues any more. It wants to be an online Mormon newspaper minus the paper. I think those rumors are true. DN will reduce the publishing to a few times per week. So if you want Utah news you will be switching. And those who are not willing, expect the online site to have a charge. So if you want it for free, you will be switching. It is too bad the DN decided to hire individual to publish a newspaper who don't have experience publishing a paper.

It seems that the newspapers with all the "newspaper experience" running things are losing circulation like crazy, printing less and less reliable "news" and more biased opinion. It should be obvious to everyone that the traditional print newspapers are rapidly becoming obsolete, unprofitable, and unsustainable. (How is the NY Times doing?)

Most of the "news" you have already read on line. Most of the classified ads are gone, replaced by Craigs List, or KSL.com type operations with far more info at less cost for the user.

I have loved daily newspapers for over 50 years, but expect that there will be none in Salt Lake City at the end of my lifetime.

Bravo Deseret News for daring to see the future and make the leap from the past to the future. I just hope you retain the local/regional focus and do not become the "National Mormon News online."

As far as the "other" SLC paper: it has been worthless for a decade other than to encourage liberal delusions and spew hatred for some religions. Good riddance when it folds- hopefully soon.

This may be the wave of the future but I'm concerned about the state of the 4th estate. Many may not even know what that is. Our country was founded on 4 branches of government having checks and balances. The 4th is a free press that serves as a watchdog over the other 3. It's a sad state when our "news" has become an echo chamber for one's own opinion. If you're liberal you watch MSNBC -- conservative, it's FOX. I for one will miss those looking out for the public interest and holding our govt. responsible through providing objective information. I'm very disappointed the DNews appears to be giving up on the principles and ethics of real journalism.

Folks, Wake up! DN Subscriber has it right. The newspaper industry as a traditional newspaper is sliding downhill a an unprecedented pace. The days of the traditional newspaper are numbered the same as the older generation who did not grow up on computers. This move by the Deseret News shows some insight and desire to keep their business running. Refusal to make this move would only secure their eventual death with the rest of the traditional papers.

There is too much content that is free on the internet for a paid online model to work. Don't worry about that. They will have to find other ways to make money and their are plenty of ways to get that done.

For too long, newspapers have given the news away for free, allowing Google News and other "organizers" of online news story reap the profits without the need to hire journalists or pay for the news. Sadly, the public has become too hooked on convenient "free" stuff on the Web, and it will be difficult to force folks to pay for news content.

As the LDS-owned news organization, DN has a chance of getting people to pay if the news is relevant to LDS readers. The Wall Street Journal has been able to charge for its online content because it provides quality business news that no one else can provide. This "exclusiveness" is what makes the WSJ king!

"Happy" sanitized news, however, isn't likely to draw readers, so the DN may need to do more "exclusive" hard hitting, if not critical stories, not necessarily of the church, but relevant to LDS sensibilities, if it will encourage paid online subscriptions.

Cell phones have created a very different model for its online services -- people have become accustomed to pay for everything related to cell phones, from apps to texting... if only Internet news providers did the same thing!

All three are BYU-educated Mormons. None have direct newspaper experience, or journalism training. Extreme conservative bias with a strong emphasis on sales. Doesn't bode well for the formerly fine journalistic integrity once enjoyed by this newspaper.

This is a good move. People no longer just want to read the news, they want to interact, discuss the news, give their opinions, challenge the writers' opinions. I often read the Trib instead of the Dnews because I can comment freely over there without hours and hours of delay before a comment gets posted and without viewpoint censorship. Here it often takes a very long time for comments to get posted, and many are simply discarded even though they comply with the stated guidelines and rules. If the Dnews wants to keep me reading, they have to change that.

wesw -- Maybe we ought to see what transpires before we condemn the move.

So called "professionals" have not done to well in the past. Maybe some who have not "grown up" in the newspaper business might know how to meet the needs of an electronic world.

I already pay for media that has LDS content. It is called the "Ensign". For news from Utah and Salt Lake I will not look to the Deseret News. It will have no news content.

WOW! It is obvious the DN has across the board readership in view of the like/hate comments. I take the Houston Chronicle but must rely on the DN for factual, unbiased information. In this regard you serve our nation well. You have put together a credentialed team that know what the Internet can do. They don't need to be journalism majors.

I am hoping they can come up with a better search system for past issues of the Deseret News. The way it works now if you do not go with their "relevance" factor and try a by-date search it seems to normally return way too many results.

I like the idea of Deseret Connect. I thought about applying but decided I lack having enough journalistic writting background, and am too fiery of a commentor to make it far in such a position.

I am not sure that Deseret Connect will work, but it is worth a try. It is clear that in this day and age the old model of newspapers in print needs to be reconsidered, and if this can be transcended by recruiting qualified journalists and editors at multiple locations to augment the content of the paper it seems like it is a good plan.

One thing I do wonder is if the Deseret Connect writers will be compensated. That issue is not addressed in the article. I guess there are reasons not to answer it until people enquire, if for no other reason than that potential compensation would depend on the skills the specific writer would bring.

Dektol,
"BYU boys"? Two of them have graduate degrees from Harvard. Anyway, the skill sets needed to move forward have little to do with newspapers and a lot to do with business models and contributions models.

The fact that Deseret Connect's director has experience on a similar project with BYU-Idaho online classes is very relevant. It is not clear that anyone has tried anything of that type for a newpaper before, and of those who have there remains the question of A-did their methods work? and B-If they worked, and they now have such a system, why would they leave and try doing it all over again, when changed circumstances may spell disaster?

Bobkins,
These are just additional apointments to the Deseret News' staff. The publisher, Jim Wall, the editor, Joseph Cannon, various subject editors and other editors and staff are still in place. Even if you had just read about the Editorial Advisory Board, you would know one of the mebmers of that board has extensive journalistic experience and another has extensive publishing experience.

SJ,
My access to the Deseret News has been on-line only for years. It works for me.

Actually Lee does have experience in publishing, or at least running a business involved in publishing. That is what Heritage Makers does. True, there are those who object to its distribution model (as there probably are people who hate Tupperware) but it is publishing.

Ancestry amy have started in Utah but to refer to it as a "Mormon Cottage industry" in a way to try and attack it ignores its nation-wide subscription base. I have heard adds for it on the radio here in Metro-Detroit, and many of the people who come to our local Family History Center are subscribers to Ancestry. That may not be surprising, but probably over 85% of our patrons are not Latter-day Saints, primarily Baptists, Catholics and Jews, so this is something more than a "Utah Cottage Insdustry".

I would say especially Lee represents why Utah has enjoyed properity and economic growth for most of the last decade while Michigan has experienced neither at times being in a one-state recession. It is because Utah has innovators and entrepeneurs who work to use new technologies. Michigan has people who wait for government to lead out.