ByWillAtkinson.com

In the Johnsonian’s office Monday night, we brought up a point that may be overlooked: why not alter the delivery method of print newspapers? Why not make a nice looking machine that delivers a newspaper and a hot cup of a coffee for 75 cents? It could be a great way to increase the print product’s popularity.

Soda manufacturers already experiment with vending machines. Coca Cola recognized the need to have hip machines in order to attract demographics.

Coca Cola machines have evolved over the years:

Newspaper vending machines, on the other hand, have remained relatively stagnant:

Surely someone can come up with an attractive machine that dispenses a coffee and newspaper (partnership with Starbucks in trendy apartment buildings and hotels??). Maybe it could even have a cool delivery like those Coke machines that have a mechanical arm that visibly picks up and delivers the bottle. A nice looking machine with attractive graphics and a fun delivery system might be a great way to attract a younger, urban audience.

Just a thought.

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Herald blog continues

From the paper that brought you the Staples Center revenue sharing controversy, a new scandal has hit the LA Times.

Brian Grazer, the noted Hollywood producer, was slated to guest-edit the Times’ editorial page. Unbeknownst to readers, the LA Times’ editorial page editor, Andres Martinez, was having a romantic affair with Brian Grazer’s PR woman. Martinez’ involvement constitutes a textbook journalistic conflict of interest. You can leave Martinez your thoughts on his blog. Deadline Hollywood has the full breakdown.

PC World named Packard Bell computers as the worst PCs of all time. The company “was a perennial bottom dweller in PC World’s reliability and service ratings” and had twice the industry-standard product return rate. Packard Bell no longer sells PCs on the American market.

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for the old Packard Bell 406CD. Although it had its fair share of problems, I first learned Windows, HTML and a host of other skills on the old corner PC. Perhaps its inclusion is warranted, but I’d have to disagree with its placement at the top of PC World’s list. The corner PC, with its whopping 16 Mb of RAM and an entire 1 Gb of hard drive space, served my family well.

After so many heartbreaking losses, Winthrop has finally managed to advance in the NCAA tournament after defeating Notre Dame 74-64. The Eagles play Oregon today at 2:50 p.m.

The Seattle Times has an interesting story on the game. The story puts Winthrop vs. Oregon as a New Balance vs. Nike matchup.

Other stories:
MSNBC
New York Times

Social media Web site Reddit has an interesting discussion on Warren Buffet’s recent assessment of newspapers (Warning: the discussion on Reddit contains explicit language) in Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letter.

It’s interesting to read comments on newspapers by people who don’t work in the media world. These are the readers that journalists have to reach out to.

Here are some excerpts:

“People aren’t paying for news. They’re paying for a newspaper to get coupons, the home shopper, classifieds, tv guide, or obits. But they would never buy a paper that was JUST those things. They want news.” - hopper

“The [reputable news sources] are more heavily edited and fact-checked, but they are also pruned into banality and contain hidden biases in the facts, interviews, and events never reported at all.” - tofocsend

On community journalism, Reddit user 570 writes, “Rather than imporve their journalism and give people a reason to depend on them again, they are depending on the public to give them free content. It’s part of their freaking business-plan now!”

“Young people do not subscribe to newspapers. I know I don’t want them in my house! So as older subscribers retire, they aren’t being replaced. The Boomers are headed out and a lot of stuff that catered to them will go with them and good riddance!” - goldenhb

“and why are newspapers so great? 90% of their “A” section content is repurposed wire data. yahoo news get the same data, save yourself the walk to the curb. the only thing newspapers seem to still dominate is municipal politics. the ad content is insane in most local papers. the ad content can be weighed in pounds in the san jose merc. i’m supposed to be rooting for this? goodbye, dead industry.” - cypress-hill

Poynter has an interesting story on the Financial Times’ success with the integrated newsroom experiment. Not only are the FT’s print subscriptions up, advertising revenues were up a “robust 9 percent for 2006.”

Gannett is trying similar tactics. Their newsrooms are being dubbed “information centers,” with online and print operations converging.

The convergence of online and print departments into multimedia newsrooms appears to be a positive development for papers. I think this is the direction the entire industry is heading. Small town papers, which claim a monopoly on much information, don’t have as much at stake, but for national papers (Wash Post, NYT, USA Today, WSJ, etc.), the multimedia newsroom is the only way to stay relevant in the digital age.