April 23, 2009, will be an important day for journalism.
It’s 150 years since the birth of the Rocky Mountain News … and the deadline set by former staffers, who lost their jobs when the title shut in February, to attract 50,000 subscribers for their new online-only venture.
If they make it, inDenvertimes.com will launch in early May. But, surrounded by mountains as they are, asking readers to stump up some $3million in five weeks, in the middle of a recession, is about as steep as it gets.
What’s more, news this week that both advertising revenues AND online page impressions fell dramatically after the Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat folded its print edition can hardly be seen as an auspicious omen.
But there’s a difference.
The decision to make Taloussanomat web-only in late 2007 was made by a nervous management that lost sight of its market because its head was buried in red-inked revenue and circulation reports. The result, inevitably, was a lack of decision-making clarity.
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