Duluth News Tribune

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 5:33pm on Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Duluth Blogger Says Newspaper Won't Take His Money

Chris Julin wrote on Perfectduluthday.com on December 3, 2009:

"I told them I don’t want a paper edition of the News Tribune any more. I told them I’m no longer willing to stuff pounds and pounds of newsprint and glossy ads into paper bags each week.

I don’t want you to bring the paper to my door, I told them, because I read the paper online now. I want to pay you for that, I said.

“The online paper is a free service,” said the first customer service rep I talked with.

I told her I understood that, but I wanted to pay anyway.

She said I couldn’t do that. Maybe, she said, I could donate my paper to Newspapers in Education."

The full story:
http://www.perfectduluthday.com/2009/12/03/trying-to-pay-for-my-local-paper

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 9:58am on Thursday, February 26th, 2009

February 24, 2009: The Associated Press reported that two Minnesota newspapers are getting grants to "retrain" staff to understand the Internet:

"Two Minnesota newspapers will receive a share of state grants normally given to retrain workers in manufacturing and other industries in transition.

The Duluth News Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press will work with the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication to help staff adapt to an increasingly Internet-based industry.

Minnesota Job Skills Partnership is awarding $238,000 in state funds, while the newspapers and the university will contribute about $469,000 combined, mostly by devoting staff time to training.

Paul Moe, the state program's director, said newspapers around the country are looking closely at the project as a potential model.

Kathleen Hansen, director of the university's Minnesota Journalism Center, said the grant idea came from the Pioneer Press. She said the application was unusual for a state agency more accustomed to businesses that deal in plastics or crop machinery.

"This is a very different kind of workforce group," she said.

Hansen said training will be tailored to the skills of the newsroom and advertising sales staffs at the newspapers. She said a primary goal for both departments will be getting them away from print-based thinking.

Some journalists "don't know how to start thinking about stories without thinking about what's going to be in the print newspaper," she said."