Why Republicans Lost

[Ken Gigliotti]

 The funny thing about THAT  old  business is that it still attracts the best , the brightest , left leaning young men and women  and trains them in a very short time to be TOO White , too old , and way too Male . The “word factory” apprenticeship has miles to go and only days to get there.  Oh yea , too dopey , bashful , grumpy  and too sneezy to realize the wiring of demographics is way out of any league  we have ever played in . Our industry has gone Republican , trying to win with a demographic of a bye gone era . It is  the Pepsi generation settled on  crack .
   The best possible outcome is trying to see things not as left or  right ,  just Up or Down .    Paraphrasing Bob Dylan as he began to disassociate his music from politics.
  Data mining , demographics on steroids. Anybody  tried it?
More industry layoffs .The saddest day is  when we do everything the same and expect a different outcome.
 Way too harsh . When you consider implementing fundamental change  and how one change effects  all the moving parts of the newspaper business ,it is easy to see how hard that would be . The relationship between owners, managers and workers , the keychain  relationships between advertising and editorial , and the relationships between  advertisers , subscribers  as well as other related information handlers is daunting . Making changes in editorial or advertising alone effects all the other parts .
  This  business has had so much historical success just like old political parties but times they are changing . A change that recognizes  the newspaper  product  in a flooded news market place,  making  it something  that cannot be sold in it's present state . It cannot be sold becuase it's core readership  has diminished and new readers do not recognize it.  If only we could just skip to the Spanish vote as Republicaans hope to do next time.
  We attract the best people and they can change our ways .Writing and photography is a good place to start .Searching for buyers in a sophisticated way , as well as adjusting  the content  along with  finding partnerships within the  business structure is essential .

[Warren Toda]

Data mining , demographics on steroids. Anybody  tried it.

The Toronto Star recently won an award(?) (in the coveted green category) for "Best Data Visualization". I'm not sure if that award was meant as a complement or an insult.

Do they teach "data visualization" in journalism schools these days? Is "data visualizer" a job title? Exactly how to you visualize data when, in fact, everything around us is, and always has been, "data"? Aren't photographers "data visualizers"?

More industry layoffs.

When you consider implementing fundamental change  and how one change effects all the moving parts of the newspaper business it is easy to see how hard that would be. ... Making changes in editorial or advertising alone effects all the other parts .

See recent thread about Sun Media laying off 500 jobs and yet its CEO says that it won't affect anything. Obviously, he's fooling no one but himself.

[Louie Palu]

Warren you are the man.