Letter from the Editor

 Newspapers aren’t used to making their own headlines. But the closings and cutbacks of newspapers around the country have caused many of our Transcript readers to ask me. “How are you guys doing?”

The Transcript, like most community newspapers, has not been hit as hard by the recession as larger newspapers. We’ve lost some help-wanted and other advertising and some retailers have cut back but it’s nothing like the losses in larger cities.

Just as in much of the industry, we have lost some print subscribers. Some big-city papers are hemorrhaging as many as 5,000 readers a week. 

Our readers — both in print and online — are a loyal bunch and come to The Transcript as their primary source of local news. That’s what will save community newspapers.

One of the problems plaguing the newspaper industry is theft of orginal news content. Some research shows as much as 80 percent of all news comes frmo a newspaper. It comes from the reporter going to the courthouse, the police station or city hall or visiting with high school students about the latest trend on campus. Television stations and so-called “News” websites don’t have those kind of resources.

 Some Websites seem to think that if a newspaper posts something on its site, it’s fair game to steal, repackage and post on other sites. It’s outright theft and newspapers are beginning to realize that they need to protect their work product just like an author protects her novel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.