The AP’s reporting that the SF Chronicle will begin printing some of their pages on glossy paper on Monday “to better serve readers and advertisers.” They say the Chron’s “front page, most section fronts and some inside pages will be printed on high-gloss paper during the week. On Sundays, the main news section and several features sections will be glossy.”
How to decide what to say next? Choose Your Own Adventure:
— Of course, my Chronicle is already glossy, it’s called a screen!
— Have you ever heard the phrase, “polishing a turd?” Yeah.
— I wonder how many good reporters they had to lay off to pay for that?
— Remark from the comments go here.
— From a media insider: “This will indeed serve me better because now my hands won’t get all ink-stained when I use the Chron to pack all the knickkacks I’m selling on eBay”
Where was I? Oh, yeah, if the addition of glossy pages’ll make you but the paper, please, speak up. ANYWAY, also today, that well-known super fun publication, the Wall Street Journal, has announced its weekly San Francisco edition will launch tomorrow, “focusing on local news and events.” Because when I think event coverage, i think The WSJ. No, I kid, seriously, maybe it’ll be cool?
You can read that stuff online here. I can’t tell if it’s going to be behind a pay wall, as much of the Journal’s online content is, and I don’t see a SF specific RSS feed yet (do you?) Update: BayNewser’s got the scoop, saying “most of the content on the WSJ.com/SF site will be free, since it is general news. Business and finance stories, however, will be subscriber-only.”
BayNewser spoke to a spokesperson from the Journal, who said A WSJ spokeswoman “that all editing and reporting will be done by current Journal staff.” They note that that’s a big contrast to the NYT Bay Area, which is staffed by students freelancers because “having Times reporters do the reporting and writing ‘doesn’t really fit within (their) staffing model.'”
My much-smarter-than me friend who notified me about the launch said “I find all of this incredibly interesting. I still don’t have a handle on why they think this is a good move, biz strategy wise.” And I am inclined to agree — if you’re laying off folks at home, as the recently Bay Areaish NY Times and Journal are doing, why not play to your core strengths instead of spreading out (or going glossy)? Isn’t that (not the glossy part) how Rome fell?
