Comments about ‘The state of the newspaper industry: Has the Deseret News found the right formula?’

Excellent article about the "new" Deseret News. It gave me a new appreciation for the necessary transformation of printed newspapers in general, and for the local newspaper business specifically.

To sum it up: Deseret News is chasing the Fox News model and it is working for them. As a Mormon i find this troubling and disturbing.

apparently competing for the same audience as the national enquire and the other tabloid rags is working for the DN.

Truth Seeker,

May I ask you to elaborate on the similarities between Fox News and the Deseret News? I don't have cable or satellite, only the over-the-air channels. So I haven't watched Fox. But what I have heard about them did not include abandoning coverage of politics and business in favor of religion, family, personal finances and caring for the poor.

I am not surprised that changes are meet with resistance from some, but I'm surprised at the angle you took for your disagreement.

My first comment got punted to the 'denied' column. It had to do with media and/or retail space being made available regardless of economic conditions as a result of private ownership with an agenda and no shareholder responsibility whatsoever. When you've got a sugar daddy, you can make any formula successful.

Hutterite,

Are you sure you letter shouldn't have been punted to the "in denial" column? :-)

Your theory would explain survival despite lack of success. That's not the same as explaining actual success. How does your sugar daddy theory explain catching up to and even surpassing (Sunday edition) the competition after a generation of having only half their readership? And how does it explain increasing readership while the industry is crashing nationwide? There has been no change in ownership during all that time.

But of course, your conspiracy theories about the Church can over-rule all logic. Right?

We'll see if right wing pundints like Krathenhammer are still posted every week as if they were journalism.

If the DN didn't just get done soap boxing for Romney I could believe thier "new" values.

Saying that the Deseret News "has a long way to go," Mr. Gilbert in effect acknowledges the company hasn't hit the right formula to make money. A newspaper that is profitable, a rare thing in itself, doesn't have "a long way to go."

I root for the Deseret News, and its areas of emphasis are laudable. But whether there is a reader demand for a "watchdog over faith and families" remains to be seen. As a former reporter in Utah County put it: "Readers want their Mormon news, but they don't want their news Mormon."

Yes, digital revenue is increasing at all news organizations. The problem is that print-ad revenue plummets faster than digital-ad revenue increases. For every $1 gain in digital-ad revenue, for example, there is on average a $25 drop in print-ad revenue.

Again, I really would like the Deseret News to pull through, and in today's news business, innovation is key.