Paperless in Portland?
The Portland Tribune is cutting its print edition to weekly and expanding its presence on the web.
Its announcement of the changes takes a positive tone and touches on many of the themes I’ve been advocating for here on WhapWhap. I should be excited. But …
It’s a tough announcement for me to read, because I know so many of the people who started the paper or worked there. I spent hours in meetings with the founders back in 2000 and 2001 talking about the role of the internet in the launch of the paper. Several of the top execs got it more than most newspaper people I know, but the folks at the top were skeptical, and consciously toned down the web presence.
I can’t help but wonder if this transition would be smoother had everyone embraced a robust web presence right from the start.
Still, I hope the Trib makes it. And if it does fail, I hope people don’t point to the failure and say “See, the web doesn’t work!” Like the Capitol Times before it, The Trib was failing in print, too, so it’s not the best test of a mostly online presence.
Anyway, good luck Trib. I hope you pull it off.
