{"id":665,"date":"2008-06-11T00:34:18","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T07:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=665"},"modified":"2008-06-12T23:22:52","modified_gmt":"2008-06-13T06:22:52","slug":"a118-dot-com-relic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=665","title":{"rendered":"#a117 :: Dot-com relic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ENLARGE\"<\/a>Like all major American newspapers, thumb<\/a> the Los Angeles Times<\/a> – as we know it – may be doomed.<\/p>\n

Never thought I’d say that – I worked in newspapers for 17 years, side effects<\/a> including ’90 to ’97 on staff at the Times, and I always kept the faith.<\/p>\n

I had rough moments mixed in with the fantastic stories, but hope barnacled my frequent reality checks – “Oh come ON, they’ll figure it out sooner or later – they’re just an information company that needs to retool for the digital age!”
\n<\/p>\n

But they never really did.<\/p>\n

In the past two or three years – despite a brutally swift series of coups, reshufflings and overall management changes, the new-media gurus at the paper – once the largest metro daily in the United States – pulled off some remarkable changes. They introduced dozens of blogs, put out hundreds of excellent Flash-heavy multimedia news packages, and were brave enough to take some wild stabs – including less-successful experiments such as the well-run, prematurely killed and excessively ridiculed wikitorial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But they’re still – still<\/i> – ignoring the complete paradigm shift in their audience’s relationship with media companies. (My earlier take here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

So here’s a little token – a gimme gadget that lets you see people sneaking up behind you if you park it on the top-left corner of your computer monitor.<\/p>\n

Time for a little reflection, my friends. This model isn’t working.<\/p>\n

Only the boldest of editors will admit that the best course – rather than just letting the huge old corpse holding your otherwise precious central nervous system bleed out – is this: Shut down for six months. Abandon the dead-tree distribution medium. Use the savings to retool entirely for the web.<\/p>\n

Invite the public inside. Give them a place to call home – news about the small stuff affecting their own lives – and a true voice (read: un-moderated comment threads) on the big stuff.<\/p>\n

I don’t know why I keep posting these ideas, honestly. The clue train steamed through years ago, and won’t be coming back.<\/p>\n

I guess the sight of a bright, logoed plastic toy – a hint of “fun” from the distant, ill-starred past of an industry sorely lacking such fun, or even vision now – spiked my beer with a lethal dose of maudlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like all major American newspapers, thumb the Los Angeles Times – as we know it – may be doomed. Never thought I’d say that – I worked in newspapers for 17 years, side effects including ’90 to ’97 on staff at the Times, and I always kept the faith. I had rough moments mixed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artifact","category-jetsam","category-symbol","category-toy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}