The D News will soon be dead

[Jeff Lebowski]

I don't buy that 70% number. But we have no way to know.

I believe it is more like 80%. It has never been a secret.

[All-American]

I don't buy that 70% number. But we have no way to know.

Whether you buy it or not, it's the number that they've been reciting ever since I started up there. I've never heard any other number.

BYU-I does it, too:

Brigham Young University–Idaho is affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Approximately 70% of the University’s operating costs are paid from the tithes of Church members.

http://www.byui.edu/Catalog/2008-200...nformation.pdf

[RobinFinderson]

Help me understand how these two issues are related.

Newspapers are folding everywhere. This is not at all unique to SLC or the DesNews.

It made me sick when they hired Joe Cannon. Maybe the ship was going to sink regardless, but he seemed completely unqualified.

Only related in the sense that the church might be dumping assets that lose a lot of money.

[Bastage]

They've been gradually easing up on Dick Harmon's responsibilities as a beat writer with Jeff Call and Jim Rayburn taking on the football and basketball responsibilities respectively. I don't know how much longer Dick plans on being in the newspaper biz.

Call didn't want to do the beat for football and basketball, so they have Rayburn doing the basketball beat.

The D News took way to long to figure out that they need to be an online force and not just in print.

[byu71]

If BYU ever forgets that its mission is to provide its students with a world-class education which will prepare them to contribute to the world's work force, you can expect it to crumble as well.

I don't think that is BYU's mission. BYU's mission is to provide the youth of the church a place to gather and keep the culture pure. I don't mean that in a slanderous way either. BYU provides a core place for members to marry members. Without BYU, the task would be more difficult.

I think every organization needs your hard core and BYU provides the environment to build and strengthen the hard core.

Now, if the education isn't of high quality also, then it becomes harder to get members to go to the "church" school. However, as long as the school provides an excellent education at a cheap price, the primary mission can be accomplished.

[beefytee]

Well if you look at this:

http://saas.byu.edu/ebrochure/BYU_Tr...r_College_.php

It looks like members pay about $4,420 in tuition and we can guess that based on other private schools, the church and private donations cover about $19000.

That is about 80% being covered outside of tuition.

You also have to consider that other private schools get private donations as well, so the 80% is probably pretty accurate.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I worry about the future of journalism. Who is going to pay for the high-quality, in-depth reporting? While the D-News has floundered, ksl.com has seen phenomenal growth. They have virtually annihilated the classified sections of all regional newspapers (one of the main reasons that newspapers are struggling financially). I have heard that ksl.com is one of the biggest websites in the US in terms of traffic. It is frequently studied by media companies to determine why it has been so successful. While it is a decent way to keep up on breaking news, it lacks the serious, in-depth analysis we enjoy from newspapers.

[byu71]

I worry about the future of journalism. Who is going to pay for the high-quality, in-depth reporting? While the D-News has floundered, ksl.com has seen phenomenal growth. They have virtually annihilated the classified sections of all regional newspapers (one of the main reasons that newspapers are struggling financially). I have heard that ksl.com is one of the biggest websites in the US in terms of traffic. It is frequently studied by media companies to determine why it has been so successful. While it is a decent way to keep up on breaking news, it lacks the serious, in-depth analysis we enjoy from newspapers.

The problem is a lot of people don't trust the serious in depth analysis. Journalists have become their own worst enemies. The public has gotten on to the fact most of them not only have opinions, but they slant their coverage to agree with those opinions.

It came as quite a shock to most older Americans that the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, was a flippin liberal. He fed them the liberal line and know one but me knew it. My Dad and I would argue over dear old Walter all the time.

[Uncle Ted]

I worry about the future of journalism. Who is going to pay for the high-quality, in-depth reporting? While the D-News has floundered, ksl.com has seen phenomenal growth. They have virtually annihilated the classified sections of all regional newspapers (one of the main reasons that newspapers are struggling financially). I have heard that ksl.com is one of the biggest websites in the US in terms of traffic. It is frequently studied by media companies to determine why it has been so successful. While it is a decent way to keep up on breaking news, it lacks the serious, in-depth analysis we enjoy from newspapers.

Newspapers are so 20th century. They need to get with it or die.

[YOUTUBE]wwFbwHaP5tE[/YOUTUBE]

As soon as The Economist is available on the iPad I am never going to buy something printed on paper again.

As for KSL.com they did a good job capturing the Utah classified ad market which use to be the newspaper's bread and butter, IMO.

[Moliere]

Only related in the sense that the church might be dumping assets that lose a lot of money.

I wonder what the real return is to the church for having BYU. I'm assuming that it is definitely a positive return given that BYU is structured to put kids into business, law, or engineering fields where they will make decent money and return 10% of it to the church. The only issue is it is a long term investment.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The problem is a lot of people don't trust the serious in depth analysis. Journalists have become their own worst enemies. The public has gotten on to the fact most of them not only have opinions, but they slant their coverage to agree with those opinions.

It came as quite a shock to most older Americans that the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, was a flippin liberal. He fed them the liberal line and know one but me knew it. My Dad and I would argue over dear old Walter all the time.

If you feel this way you should be more disturbed. I think print media has been far more balanced and objective than TV and radio.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

If you feel this way you should be more disturbed. I think print media has been far more balanced and objective than TV and radio.

I'm not so much worried about political bias as I am about bias related to advertisers. I'm probably more worried about how newspaper reporting goes about as deep as quoting a party's hired gun. Case in point: check out the reports coming over the AP wire about the housing bubble circa 2006 and 2007. For some reason they thought it was good idea to quote verbatim the "analysis" coming out of the N.A.R. with little to no counterpoint.

[Uncle Ted]

If you feel this way you should be more disturbed. I think print media has been far more balanced and objective than TV and radio.

From Out of Print - The death and life of the American newspaper:

Among the most significant aspects of the transition from “dead tree” newspapers to a world of digital information lies in the nature of “news” itself. The American newspaper (and the nightly newscast) is designed to appeal to a broad audience, with conflicting values and opinions, by virtue of its commitment to the goal of objectivity. Many newspapers, in their eagerness to demonstrate a sense of balance and impartiality, do not allow reporters to voice their opinions publicly, march in demonstrations, volunteer in political campaigns, wear political buttons, or attach bumper stickers to their cars.

In private conversation, reporters and editors concede that objectivity is an ideal, an unreachable horizon, but journalists belong to a remarkably thin-skinned fraternity, and few of them will publicly admit to betraying in print even a trace of bias. They discount the notion that their beliefs could interfere with their ability to report a story with perfect balance. As the venerable “dean” of the Washington press corps, David Broder, of the Post, puts it, “There just isn’t enough ideology in the average reporter to fill a thimble.”

Meanwhile, public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line. A recent study published by Sacred Heart University found that fewer than twenty per cent of Americans said they could believe “all or most” media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than twenty-seven per cent just five years ago. “Less than one in five believe what they read in print,” the 2007 “State of the News Media” report, issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, concluded. “CNN is not really more trusted than Fox, or ABC than NBC. The local paper is not viewed much differently than the New York Times.” Vastly more Americans believe in flying saucers and 9/11 conspiracy theories than believe in the notion of balanced—much less “objective”—mainstream news media. Nearly nine in ten Americans, according to the Sacred Heart study, say that the media consciously seek to influence public policies, though they disagree about whether the bias is liberal or conservative.

[Jeff Lebowski]

From Out of Print - The death and life of the American newspaper:

As bad as it is, the talking heads on TV seem far worse. To me, anyway.

[Non Sequitur]

I'm that concerned. In a free society the quality of ideas will ultimately correspond to the quality of the audience. In the days of yellow journalism, the news wasn't any more reliable simply because the words were printed on paper stock. We ultimately evolved from yellow journalism because there was a market for honesty and objectivity. And where there's a market, there is profit. The same will happen with digital media. As long as there is an audience for honest, objective journalism, someone will figure out a way to profit from it.