Today, Billie and I are moving from our apartment into a rental house. Tomorrow will also probably be taken up with moving and getting settled in.
Thursday, I'm flying to Chicago and will be gone through Tuesday.
Throughout, we'll have our scanners on and endeavor to keep the site updated with breaking news. WBTA's Geoff Redick will also provide coverage of Genesee County news, posting directly to The Batavian. We will also have some coverage from our correspondents. And while on the road, there will be news items that come into me that I can post. All-in-all, we should be able to keep the site appropriately updated.
In Chicago, I'll be attending a conference of local online news publishers, then the same university that arranged this conference is hosting about a dozen of us more successful publishers for three days of discussion about how we might continue to grow our businesses.
There's a lot of concern in the journalism world about the fate of newspapers and whether online-only news sites can be economically viable enough to fill in any gaps in news coverage. The Batavian is at the forefront of building a sustainable online-only news business, which is why I've been invited -- all expenses paid -- to these conferences.
While I won't be around to go out and cover things like I typically would, we will continue coverage of our community.
Congrats on your move. It is
Congrats on your move. It is always nice to get a bigger place with more elbow room. I hope that you get some free time to see Chicago and of course take some pictures to share with us.
Congratulations, Howard. I
Congratulations, Howard. I don't think online news will ever completely replace print newspapers, but it has certainly changed the dynamic. Especially for breaking news, the online system is best. The papers are surely reacting everywhere, but you can't have an interactive discussion about an article with other readers except online. Enjoy the conference.
Congratulations for being
Congratulations for being invited to the conference! Be sure to tell them how important it is that an online paper is a great place for community members to interact about stories that affect them. It's also important that you don't moderate posts too heavily, so people are inclined to say what they honestly feel.
Dave, I'd love to see print
Dave, I'd love to see print newspapers survive. I'm not, however, optimistic. Newspapers have been slowly losing readers per-thousand population since the 1970s. The cause of readership declines have little to do with online, except that online is accelerating the process. What will happen to newspapers isn't that there isn't a lot of people who still want a print newspaper, someday, but that the "a lot" won't be big enough to off set the expense of printing and distribution and other larger expenses that go with such an operation.