Update #1: Johannesburg, Wednesday, June 19, 18:55
TAKEAWAY: A newspaper is saying goodbye to daily print edition, while a weekly is born in Florida. PLUS: Watching the press cover a story that’s close to home.
It’s what it is: a time of transition, reinventions, closings and openings in the newspaper world today.
This week we have seen The Washington Examiner saying *adios to its daily print edition, and in Florida, The Tampa Bay Times and the Plant City Observer have teamed up to create a partnership to publish a weekly newspaper – the Plant City Times & Observer.
This will be one newspaper I will be consuming as a reader, as it circulates in the area where I live.
The shape of things to come?
The Washington Examiner, a gritty tabloid that specialized in local reporting, with emphasis on crime, government and sports in the DC area, published its last local daily edition last week. It will become “a digital platform and weekly print magazine focused on political thought leadership,” the company announced.
As usually happens when a newspaper ceases publication these days, one hears a variety of reasons for its demise. I am not at all familiar with the Examiner and why management decided to stop it as a print publication, but I can say that we will read more obituaries such as this one, with newspapers opting to be digital only, with a more robust or magazine style weekend edition, for those lean back readers who wish to lounge in a disconnect mode with their weekend reading.
A new weekly is born in Florida
The Plant City Times & Observer, meanwhile, will be a free weekly newspaper, which will appear in August, offering local news and advertising to its readers in east Hillsborough County.
It will circulate 15,000 copies each week, available in racks and through home delivery. The paper will publish as a free-standing paper and as a section of the Tampa Bay Times in the Plant City area.
“This will be a terrific partnership for both the Times and the Observer Media Group, each of us bringing a strong commitment to Plant City and combining our resources to serve the community even better than each of us could independently. We’re very excited to get started,” says Joe DeLuca, Tampa Publisher and Vice President, Tampa Bay Times.
These recent developments also continue to show a trend for newspapers in smaller communities performing better than those in the large metropolitan areas.
Maurice Deville: on to the next challenge
Graphic by Constantin Eberle for TheMarioBlog
It is interesting to see how the press covers stories that one is very familiar with at a personal level.
Take the case of young football star Maurice Deville, who has just announced he is going to play for Germany’s Saarbrucken team, a great move for him as he leaves the team of Elversberg.
I have known Mo since he was 11 years old and have followed his successful football trajectory, along with all the hard work and the hours of practice that it takes to get to where he is now.
At 20, Maurice has everything ahead of him and he will follow in the footsteps of his dad, Frank Deville, who also played for Saarbrucken in the 90s.
As the announcement of Maurice’s transfer was made, the German and Luxemburger newspapers (Maurice is a Luxemburger and also plays for Luxembourg’s national team) went wild with the story.
The newspaper headlines use a variety of approaches to announce his switch to Saarbrucken, with the most interesting coming from Bild Zeitung, the popular German daily, which suggested that Saarbrucken “stole” Maurice from his former team of Elversberg.
The real story? Nobody stole anybody, truly. Maurice simply saw Saarbrucken as the next logical step in his evolution as a player.
But, as I told Maurice, it’s good to get all that press, regardless of what the headline says. In the old days they would tell him “all that ink never hurts”.
Still true today and congratulations to Maurice Deville.
Frank Deville, Maurice Deville: the legacy continues at Saarbrucken
More about Maurice Deville’s transfer to Saarbrucken:
(In German and French )
http://www.die-fans.de/fussball/aktuell/artikel/,Maurice+Deville+stürmt+in+die+Landeshauptstadt,51221,,,,,south
http://www.wort.lu/de/view/deville-wechselt-zum-1-fc-saarbruecken-51bf1af8e4b0c60d7f09103e
http://www.ran.de/de/fussball/dritte-liga/1306/News/saarbruecken-leiht-korte-aus-braunschweig-aus.html
http://www.lessentiel.lu/de/sport/fussball/story/28893728
http://www.tageblatt.lu/sport/story/20113632
http://www.handelsblatt.com/fussball-3-liga-saarbruecken-holt-korte-und-deville/8364382.html
http://www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de/sport/saarland-fussball/art261265,4824817
http://www.focus.de/regional/saarbruecken/fussball-1-fc-saarbruecken-holt-offensivspieler-korte-und-deville_aid_1017621.html
http://www.volksfreund.de/nachrichten/region/rheinlandpfalz/rheinland/Rheinland-Pfalz-und-Nachbarn-1-FC-Saarbruecken-holt-Offensivspieler-Korte-und-Deville;art158726,3558638
http://sv07elversberg.de/
http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/3liga/startseite/588001/artikel_deville-und-korte-gehen-ins-saarland.html
http://www.donaukurier.de/sport/fussball/dritteliga/Fussball-3-Liga-Saarbruecken-holt-Korte-und-Deville;art154807,2772496