Media: Tallahassee Democrat Sold!

[Florida]

Well... as we've already learned the Tallahassee Democrat will be under new ownership and managerment pending approval of the deal. My question sits at what changes we should expect from Florida's capitol press... will it ever shake its reputation as a Fish Wrapper now that its joining the USA Today team?

Its my thought that we can only get better from here. I'd like to see them reformat the paper to better reflect the unique character of the city as a Historic Government community, wouldn't some fancy letters be nice at the heading of the paper?

[Relient J]

As I recall, they used to use a more classic font for the paper's title. I share your hope that only good things will come from the Democrat's recent acquisition. However, in general I dislike the notion of a large corporation buying up local papers, or buying up media in general. As it stands now almost all of the news we receive comes from only a handful of companies. Call me cynical when it comes to media ownership by large corporations, I suppose.

[cityboy05]

I wonder what they going to call it. This is really good for the "fish wrapper" it can actually become a real newspaper.

[psycuda]

Isn't gonna happen, Having come from the ancesteral home of Gannett (Upstate NY) I have seen the results of their papers. It's gonna be the same old crap, except the Parade on Sunday will be replaced with USA Weekend.

[Relient J]

I hope the Tallahassee Democrat's Web site doens't suffer. The newspaper of the town I currently live in is owned by Gannet, and no offense to them, but their Web site is fairly sparse.

[Florida]

I've visited some of the websites of the Gannett Co.'s newspapers and I share concerns about their content and layout. I'm growing concerned that this could be a step in the wrong direction but I don't want to make assumptions. I wish we were owned by a small company like the St. Pete Times, but chances are quality would suffer from shortages in funds if that were the case...

But sure I'm afraid of changes that may happen to TDO.com.

[cityboy05]

^No not my TDO.com!

[Florida]

Yup... its on the line!

[Florida]

According to a brief in last weeks Sunday paper... the closing of the deal to transfer the paper should be completed by the 30th of this month... I'm so afriad of the website changes.

[Relient J]

^ Me too! Especially since it's been one of my few sources of Tallahassee news (until I came here).

[Florida]

Im not sure if its going to change for the better or worse... I'm just afriad of what I've seen from the other newspaper websites that Gannett owns.

If we get the USA Today treatment we may be alright.

[Florida]

On Sunday we learned the Switch from Knight Ridder to Gannett became official for the Tallahassee Democrat.

[Florida]

On Tuesday we learned the Tallahassee Democrat now has a new Editor, who is said to be a well known turn around guy for newspapers.

Is the Tallahassee Democrat THAT bad?

[csmurphy8885]

soon, people in st pete, jax, orlando, and tampa will be reading the democrate with thier coffee. ok maybe not, but there is room to improve. The democrate should be available (rather, wanted) all over the state. Maybe he will turn it into such a thing.

[Florida]

That would be awesome. I think Floridians should know whats going on in their state capital... sadly enough I can understand why they don't want to read our newspaper in its current condition to do so.

Like you said, I hope things look up. Its not terrible to me. But they sure could do alot better with details and wording.