Back on January 5, I put up a link to a post that I had written titled Media: Another Funeral in Philadelphia regarding yet another round of layoffs at that city’s imperiled daily newspapers.
I noted in the course of the post that the websites of the newspapers, the Inquirer and Daily News, are notably sad affairs.
This is unfortunate because these websites — which include online-only features such as blogs — are one of the few opportunities to reclaim lost readers and grow new ones in an age of plummeting newspaper sales. Yet despite that reality, the papers’ managements seem unwilling or incapable of breathing new life into their websites even though the futures of their papers are literally on the line.
Now, in a development that is puzzling on its face, the Inky has shut down a popular blog and reassigned the blogger to be a columnist. Why puzzling? Because the blog did exactly what newspapers need to do more of — build relationships with their communities through conversations with readers.
Click here to read more at Kiko’s House.