New Mantra for Newspapers: Sleep with your Enemy
Over the past few months as the crisis engulfing traditional media has accelerated, formerly unthinkable alliances between rival organizations have started to become commonplace.
- In Texas, two old rivals — the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — started sharing concert reviews and photos in November.
- In Maine, the Bangor Daily News started sharing resources with other state newspapers last September.
- In Florida, by October, four independent newspaper companies — the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and the Treasure Coast Newspapers — were all cooperating in their coverage. In addition, the Herald is cooperating with its cross-state rival St. Petersburg Times have joined business and some journalistic operations.
- In Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch has stopped covering some sporting events in Cleveland and Cincinnati, in favor of concentrating resources on its own local area.
- Late in December, the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun announced they would begin sharing stories and photos as a way to conserve resources for both operations.
- There have also been examples of former competitors joining forces in the radio and TV industries.
In the online media world, linking to other sites, and promoting (or criticizing) each other’s content has long been standard operating procedure for most content websites. It is one part of a content strategy that allows each publisher to leverage the other work available out there, while focusing its own limited resources on what it can do best.
In this context, the new cooperative spirit between newspapers might be interpreted as another game of catch-up with the new media paradigm. In any event, the ecology of the news business is never going to be the same.
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In addition to serving as a BNET Media analyst/blogger, David Weir is a veteran journalist and the author of several books. Weir is a co-founder and vice-president of the Center for Investigative Reporting, as well as an editorial board member of The Nation.
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