The paper admits it had fallen “woefully behind” in the shift to online journalism
Yesterday afternoon the LA Times announced a new model for the newspaper’s reporting with the Internet at its center – go figure!
And they came to this stunning conclusion after an expert review by previous editor Dean Baquet.
Under the new plan there will be total integration of the online and off line version of the paper. The online version will concentrate on breaking news in an effort to compete with news aggregators like Yahoo! News and Google News..
"We can’t hide from the fact that smart competitors such as Google and Craigslist are stealing readers and advertisers from us," said Los Angeles Times editor James O’Shea "As an organization and a business, we are in a fight to recoup threatened revenue that finances our news-gathering,"
Indeed so. Automotive print advertising at the LA Times totalled $102 million in 2004 and it is only expected to be $55 million this year. It’s hard to keep your news room going when the dollars are disappearing. I just wonder what took them so long to see the writing on the wall.
And this should act as a clarion wake up call for any PR practitioner who does not yet know that online media relations is a core component of the job description today.
Hat tip to Media Post.
