The Charlotte Observer

[RiverwoodCLT]

Why would I want the paper without the business section. The paper is just about worthless as it is. Charlotte is the largest city in North carolina and they an not find any business going on in town?

[Eastman]

Now will the business section still be on the web?

[JayGee]

Now will the business section still be on the web?

I've been to plenty of smaller cities with better papers than Charlotte O. It's shameful.

[voyager12]

Several dailies nationwide have cut their business sections. It's not a novel move. Compared to The Philly Inq, San Diego Union Trib, and many others that are teetering or in bankruptcy, The O is actually in decent shape. The Detroit News has stopped daily delivery and The Seattle PI is online only. It could get worse here but either way I feel for the those that got axed today.

[Charlotteman]

As mentioned above by Voyager, Seattle's Post Intelligencer newspaper(in existence since the 1860s) is completely ceasing it's paper editions. It will be an online production only.

This seems to be the wave of the future. How sad if the Observer meets the same fate.

[monsoon]

As mentioned above by Voyager, Seattle's Post Intelligencer newspaper(in existence since the 1860s) is completely ceasing it's paper editions. It will be an online production only. This seems to be the wave of the future. How sad if the Observer meets the same fate.

I have no idea if the Seattle paper's demise was due to bad management or poor writing, but that is what killed the Observer. It's not the recession nor is it the Internet though both are probably taking down papers that were already sick like the Observer. I will contend the paper can't value engineer itself so much that there is no value left that would be the reason to purchase it. It is also not a forgone conclusion the print media is dying as there is a local paper in Mecklenburg now that has over 100,000 circulation and that is from just 0 a few years ago. (same time Observer was dying) The difference is this paper is well written, focuses on local and community issues, and is not set at an elementary school level.

[caterpillar2]

I think that the Observer is a racist piece of trash. The African American community has a local newspaper. Why does the Observer show such a disproportionatey large number of African American photos and/or articles. The black community is smaller than the other ethnic communities. Why do they so obviously dominate the paper. Fair is fair. Is the paper hoping for a large Obama grant? I would like to see more articles about Asians or Hispanics that achieve as well. Geeezzz! talk about a bunch of suck ups. I find the Huntersville weekly paper much better than the Observer. Other than that, it really is as good as any paper I have read in other places I have lived, Florida, Ga., Minn., Ne., Co., Ca.

[Durhamite]

I think that the Observer is a racist piece of trash. The African American community has a local newspaper. Why does the Observer show such a disproportionatey large number of African American photos and/or articles. The black community is smaller than the other ethnic communities. Why do they so obviously dominate the paper. Fair is fair. Is the paper hoping for a large Obama grant? I would like to see more articles about Asians or Hispanics that achieve as well. Geeezzz! talk about a bunch of suck ups. I find the Huntersville weekly paper much better than the Observer. Other than that, it really is as good as any paper I have read in other places I have lived, Florida, Ga., Minn., Ne., Co., Ca.

I read the Observer and News & Record (Greensboro) online everday. The only time I've seen ANY front cover articles geared towards the African American community is during the CIAA.

BTW, Charlotte's African American population is more than 30% last I read or heard. That's pretty significant in my opinion.

[caterpillar2]

I read the Observer and News & Record (Greensboro) online everday. The only time I've seen ANY front cover articles geared towards the African American community is during the CIAA.

BTW, Charlotte's African American population is more than 30% last I read or heard. That's pretty significant in my opinion.

Thirty percent of the population gets eighty percent of the recognition and pictures? That is pretty significant (and unfair) in my opinion. I guess your Greensboro paper is not as partial.

[Durhamite]

Thirty percent of the population gets eighty percent of the recognition and pictures? That is pretty significant (and unfair) in my opinion. I guess your Greensboro paper is not as partial.

This is about the Charlotte Observer. 80%? Are you serious, please stop stating random figures as fact unless you have something to support those numbers. From my perspective, it's 90% (since we're throwing out our numbers) other than African American unless you include the "Paid to Party" section...even that lacks a total inclusion.

Other than the CIAA, I can't think of a front page article in the Charlotte Observer that had anything to do with African Americans. Well, the new police chief is African American ...(Oh and the Black Sheriff that got unelected elected), I guess your counting those articles about that as well.

An lastly, please get your facts together regarding Charlotte's demographics...it'll help generate some credibility.

Anyway, enjoy the a paper versions of the news"paper". It'll be a sad day to see them disappear; but I'm afraid it's inevitable.

[Charlotteman]

To my eye, it looks like newspapers are being swept aside by modernity. I'm certainly no expert, but it looks like newspapers' former ad income has been usurped by the web. Heck, Craigslist is free----how can newspapers compete with that?

Interesting it's always said that what happens in San Francisco eventually spreads to the whole country. Looks inevitable. In the not so distant future, newspapers will probably be seen only in antique shoppes.

[queensguy06]

As mentioned above by Voyager, Seattle's Post Intelligencer newspaper(in existence since the 1860s) is completely ceasing it's paper editions. It will be an online production only.

This seems to be the wave of the future. How sad if the Observer meets the same fate.

Don't forget the Rocky Mountain News as well. They have been in circulation since 1859 and ceased distribution last month.

[Charlotteman]

It was mentioned before by monsoon that many newspapers have become extremely childish, and that readers practically have to "dumb down" to read them. This might end up being the proverbial straw. Ad revenues are way down, and now the credibility of the reported news itself is in serious question.

But back to the Observer---don't ya'll agree that the upcoming 15% layoff, and cancellation of the business section looks ominous? It looks to me like the Observer is clearly in trouble.

[Charlotteman]

In yahoo headlines today: the New York Times and the Washington Post, two of the country's most influencial newspapers, are going to actively seek reductions in their number of employees. Related union members are even looking at wage concessions to keep their jobs.

The Pulitzer winning Christian Science monitor will now be a weekly publication only, with online journalism taking the focus of the paper. The Observer is a Pulitizer Prize winning paper too.

A year or so ago, urbanplanet Charlotte members were contemplating what it might be like if the Observer vacated it's Uptown digs....to allow better use of the land. That day might be sooner than we all thought. If the Observer ends physical newspapers, there would be no reason for the Uptown complex to exist.

[jruckman]

Me and the guys at CLT Blog are trying to cobble together a solution to keep local journalism live and healthy despite layoffs and the like at the big hubs.

We're pitching the idea at UNCC's Five Ventures competition, here's video from our presentation at last week's semi-finals:

http://cltblog.com/2009/03/five-ventures-finalist/

We're notably light on details at the moment, but we're trying to keep what we've been working on a little quiet until the competition is over. We welcome and comments and questions.

[New Name]

Me and the guys at CLT Blog are trying to cobble together a solution to keep local journalism live and healthy despite layoffs and the like at the big hubs.

Haha, I can't help myself - I'm sorry, and I commend you... but my first comment would be: "The guys at CLT Blog and I..." Good luck!!

[monsoon]

,,,, The Observer is a Pulitizer Prize winning paper too. ....

That was more than 20 years ago when the paper had different owners. The Observer was a much different paper in those days. Should not use it as a basis for comparisons to today's well written papers.

[monsoon]

...... "The guys at CLT Blog and I..."

Indeed. I remember having this drilled into my head when I was in maybe the 2nd or 3rd grade. I am going to say that if someone is going to spam UP with a link to an event about journalism, that a demonstration of basic written English skills are in order. I would also add this excuse, "....but we're trying to keep what we've been working on a little quiet until the competition is over..." has a few problems too. Forgetting the English, a good journalist would not contract himself in that manner.

I am nitpicking because you broke our rules, jruckman. A good journalist should know better.

[jruckman]

haha, i walked right into that one.

but in my defense, i would say that i bracket forum threads, IMs, Tweets, etc. into a very conversational genre of communication. no editing, no spellchecking, just freeform transcription of thoughts into words.

in this medium, it is less about formal language rules than it is getting your thoughts out and moving on.

maybe some of you would be interested in lending your editorial skills to CLT Blog? :-) [email protected]

[Neo]

haha, i walked right into that one.

but in my defense, i would say that i bracket forum threads, IMs, Tweets, etc. into a very conversational genre of communication. no editing, no spellchecking, just freeform transcription of thoughts into words.

in this medium, it is less about formal language rules than it is getting your thoughts out and moving on.

maybe some of you would be interested in lending your editorial skills to CLT Blog? :-) [email protected]

Sites like this one and CLT Blog are certainly the future of journalism and it is obviously more informal than the likes of an age old newspaper (of course, that could be debated when compared to the likes of the Charlotte Observer ). I agree that the formalities are much less important in this type of format and that we will all fail if we don't join hands in surviving.

Having said that, while I am willing to let this blurb for CLTBlog slip, I don't see any reciprocation on CLTBlog for UrbanPlanet.org. This is why we have a line item in our rules that prohibits posts like this since keeping UP running is a costly venture (dedicated servers aren't cheap). I'm sure we would be more willing to overlook your signature which contains advertising for your site if we received something in return.

[Miesian Corners]

Actually, there is a link to UP from the CLT blog story about the new UNCC uptown building.

[monsoon]

haha, i walked right into that one.

but in my defense, i would say that i bracket forum threads, IMs, Tweets, etc. into a very conversational genre of communication. no editing, no spellchecking, just freeform transcription of thoughts into words....

I will point out that a web page is not conversation. It is the written word and what you expressed in regards to the level of editing, spell checking, freeform, is nothing new. There have been outlets for that sort of thing for as long as the average person could produce written material. The only thing that has changed is the method of delivery. (Web) The reason there are standards is because that is the only way for an author to make sure the reader does not misinterpret their words.

However if you want to present yourself as a journalist then I would suggest you also have to set a standard or people simply won't take what you have to say in a serious manner. If you choose to write using no rules of grammar, no punctuation, and no standards, then you are not even attempting to set yourself apart from say.... a 15 year old banging out 'l33t speak'. Many will choose to dismiss your work for that without even bothering to read it. Surely you don't want your work to go that route. You did after all spend some time on it.

As an example I saw your post and almost decided to delete it. The reason for this is this site gets hit quite a bit from the spammers and we spend a lot of time removing those posts. Many of these are badly written. Since you have few posts here that flag get automatically raised when I see emails and web links in posts. I don't have much time to put into these things so it's a guick glance, dump in the trash and ban the user. The reason that I didn't is because someone else had already responded to your post, so I decided to chime in as I did. You might want to consider that.

I probably have 20,000 posts on UrbanPlanet, and from that experience I can tell you that people do appreciate the consideration you give them by doing what you can to keep it as professional looking as possible. Take this as advice you didn't ask for. It doesn't have anything to do with forum moderation.

[jruckman]

Sites like this one and CLT Blog are certainly the future of journalism and it is obviously more informal than the likes of an age old newspaper (of course, that could be debated when compared to the likes of the Charlotte Observer ). I agree that the formalities are much less important in this type of format and that we will all fail if we don't join hands in surviving.

Having said that, while I am willing to let this blurb for CLTBlog slip, I don't see any reciprocation on CLTBlog for UrbanPlanet.org. This is why we have a line item in our rules that prohibits posts like this since keeping UP running is a costly venture (dedicated servers aren't cheap). I'm sure we would be more willing to overlook your signature which contains advertising for your site if we received something in return.

Thanks for the support Neo. We've linked to Urban Planet numerous times, even gone so far as to praise you guys as a local source:

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&...ite:cltblog.com

[jruckman]

I will point out that a web page is not conversation. It is the written word and what you expressed in regards to the level of editing, spell checking, freeform, is nothing new.

A web page is not a conversation? Really? Have you seen the definition of the word "forum" lately? And since when does writing a word down versus speaking it fundamentally change its level of formality. 100 years ago, perhaps. But certainly no longer.

The reason there are standards is because that is the only way for an author to make sure the reader does not misinterpret their words.

Nobody misunderstood what I was saying. If that were the case, we would be having an entirely different conversation right now.

If you choose to write using no rules of grammar, no punctuation, and no standards, then you are not even attempting to set yourself apart from say.... a 15 year old banging out 'l33t speak'.

There is a tremendous difference between using no rules, and simply not taking the time to grammar-check everything I write in a forum thread. This is unnecessary polarization that detracts from your argument.

[jruckman]

Many will choose to dismiss your work for that without even bothering to read it. Surely you don't want your work to go that route. You did after all spend some time on it.

If someone wants to discard my entire body of work for such a simple slip-up, all I can say is "let me show you the door." Or the close button, as it were. That kind of logic is not representative of any critical thinking skills, the kind of skills that separate us from the aforementioned 15-year-olds.

Do you stop in spoken conversation every time you make a simple error to go back and correct yourself? Not if you want to actually get anywhere. Just because I'm transcribing my thoughts into text doesn't mean it has to be in an official, professional capacity. Written text does not equal formal academic style by default. There is a full spectrum of communications types, all of which have merit.

Besides, I haven't seen a single post in here since mine that is completely free of grammar and style errors, yours included. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

I probably have 20,000 posts on UrbanPlanet, and from that experience I can tell you that people do appreciate the consideration you give them by doing what you can to keep it as professional looking as possible.

I've probably had some 200,000 conversations in life, and from that experience I can tell you that people appreciate not getting the structure of their words dissected when the meaning was clearly received. How do you think language evolves anyway? Through experimentation, error, simplification.

It all comes down to the fact that we're all just talking to each other in here. Despite claims of formality and professionalism, this is, in the end, an online forum. There are freaking emoticons below my text box right now. One of them is about to barf.

Yes, I made an elementary grammatical "mistake". But I'll almost certainly make one again, I've probably already done it in this reply. It's hilarious, I'm sure, because we're discussing the nature of journalism, and how me and the gang at CLT Blog are supposedly riding in on white horses. Believe me I appreciate the irony. But I wasn't submitting my response earlier as any kind of formal thesis.

In all honesty, your response to me comes off less as professional critique in a professional setting, and more as abrasive and unnecessarily judgmental posturing. I just don't see the point in any of this, and am more than a little ashamed I'm taking this so personally.