William Burg comment-4635 2009-03-16T17:08:46Z 2009-03-16T17:08:46Z Maybe it isn't the case now, but the early Critical Mass rides were as much protest as recreation, and the intent was visibility and unavoidability in the face of traffic. Over time, I'm sure that role has changed, as things tend to do, so I'm sorry if my characterization was not fair in context with today's Critical Mass rides. As bicycles have gotten more respect as practical transportation, that level of activism isn't as necessary anymore, so the ride can be more about fun and community. William Burg 2009-03-16T17:08:46Z Ryan Sharpe comment-4614 2009-03-16T02:10:43Z 2009-03-16T02:10:43Z Well, I guess my lack of fifteen years of anarchy zine back issues betrays itself; nobody I talked to was familiar with any rides before the 2001 set. I would take issue with your characterization, though. Considering that the cyclists are moving with (albeit slower than) prevailing traffic, don't prevent traffic from moving around them, moved back the start time to 6:00 from the more "rushy" time of 5:30, and usually avoid riding through the areas of town with freeway entrances and exits, calling them out for deliberately blocking rush hour traffic seems unwarranted. Ryan Sharpe 2009-03-16T02:10:43Z William Burg comment-4585 2009-03-14T05:00:03Z 2009-03-14T05:00:03Z Just went and checked my old issues of Alphabet Threat to make sure I wasn't imagining things...but the first Critical Mass rides in Sacramento were well before 2001. They started in the early 1990s, 1994 at the latest. They originally started from Alhambra and K Street, then later moved to their "deliberately blocking rush hour traffic" starting point at Fremont Park. William Burg 2009-03-14T05:00:03Z Ben Ilfeld comment-4467 2009-03-12T00:29:48Z 2009-03-12T00:29:48Z I know someone who is now being paid $50 to keep his subscription to The Bee. The Bee is not growing its base of subscribers and now has to pay to keep the subscribers they have. And you can't dismiss production costs as they are enormous! In terms of advertising leverage and classified leverage there is no question that online operations offer more value to advertisers. See Craigslist. Sorry to say, but subscription fees just do not pay for content and they never have. At best they pay for distribution. Ben Ilfeld 2009-03-12T00:29:48Z Ryan Sharpe comment-4434 2009-03-11T21:53:14Z 2009-03-11T21:53:14Z Production costs aside, you can't discount the advantages of a growing base of 300,000 paid daily subscribers, in terms of direct revenue, advertising leverage, and classified leverage. Unfortunately, without hard numbers in front of us, we're not going to be able to find that service-to-costs balancing point where the Bee can break even or profit. And as I suggested in my article, one of the pertinent numbers is how much revenue McClatchy has been sucking out of its flagship paper. Ryan Sharpe 2009-03-11T21:53:14Z Ben Ilfeld comment-4369 2009-03-11T03:41:35Z 2009-03-11T03:41:35Z We shall see what happens over time, but this I can tell you for sure: your subscriptions do not and never ever paid for investigative reporting. Subscriptions do not even cover printing and distribution of papers. I think we all need to take a hard look at exactly what costs what in a newsprint operation. Ben Ilfeld 2009-03-11T03:41:35Z Scott Holbrook comment-4394 2009-03-11T01:17:29Z 2009-03-11T01:17:29Z Like it or not, profit is the way it is, and frankly I have no problem with that. The Bee has a responsibility to it's owners to be a viable entity, and to provide a return on investment. On the flip side, owners have a responsibility to provide the tools and funding to the Bee to be able to produce a "quality" product. Unfortunately the current business model is not working, and more cuts are being made. Cuts will continue until a balance is found or the Bee shuts down. I feel the key to success will be to remain a daily paper, with home delivery. They will have to provide a rationale to advertisers to utilize the Bee to get their message out. Unfortunately appealing to (not trying to be snobby here, but short on time) a caring / "sophisticated" audience seems to be the hard way to attact an audience (Jonas Bros., Zoolander....) The Bee will have to adapt their model to reach a broader audience. I think reducing subscription fees dramatically (perhaps $5.00/mo) and increasing advertising could be a way to go. - Something like SN&R but on a daily basis, focusing more on "news". Sections will need to be added and deleted......I also think reducing "bias" will be another point to their success.... I really like flipping the pages of a daily paper in the morning - I want that tradition to continue, and all those who lost their job be re-hired and more. The Sac Press is great, and I hope they find a way to create the income necessary to grow & to begin to pay the staff what they deserve. There is room for both formats & hopefully they can compliment and support each other. - gotta run.. Scott Holbrook 2009-03-11T01:17:29Z Ryan Sharpe comment-4383 2009-03-10T22:11:38Z 2009-03-10T22:11:38Z That attitude (which I share) is the exact problem; consumers are notoriously unwilling to pay subscription fees for most online content, and it's impossible for any organization to keep a subscription lid on what they publish. Besides, citizen-journalism only goes so far; we still need full-time professional investigative journalists, and that's not exactly cheap. I highly doubt that an ad-supported online presence would be enough to keep the lights on at the Bee. It's a vicious cycle: to fund its operation, a newspaper needs a strong subscriber base, which isn't going to develop online. As sactomaya suggested, the Bee might want to look at the revenue models that sustain public radio and TV, or perhaps look into endowments, as for-profit incorporation has done it a grave disservice and it can't survive with online-only revenue. Ryan Sharpe 2009-03-10T22:11:38Z Ben Ilfeld comment-4363 2009-03-10T21:21:12Z 2009-03-10T21:21:12Z Why should I pay for content online? Ben Ilfeld 2009-03-10T21:21:12Z beerzie comment-4357 2009-03-10T18:31:42Z 2009-03-10T18:31:42Z I'm with sactomaya. The Bee needs to focus on making its core competency local information. Everything else is extraneous and better managed by other providers. Without strong, relevant, and useful local content, why would I read the Bee, and more importantly, pay for it? Personally, I think the only way for the news industry to survive is to charge for its content, whether it is online or in print. The overhead in delivering printed information is enormous, and that means the end product requires a high price point. An online-only platform is cheaper, which not only means the readers need to pay less, but also it allows more money to be put towards generating good content. Newsprint is an unsustainable business model for the Bee and I think it needs to move to an online-only model. Advertising will provide some revenue for this, but subscriptions will need to continue. But if the Bee wants to charge for its online services, it had better provide a lot more robust, relevant, and useful local content. Otherwise it is dead. beerzie 2009-03-10T18:31:42Z Paul Cox comment-4353 2009-03-10T17:45:31Z 2009-03-10T17:45:31Z Agreed that AP feeds are tiresome. I can do a Google news search and find hundreds of articles from hundreds of newspapers, all with the exact same wording. It gets old, so old in fact that I end up looking for the handful with different wording, just to try and get a different take on it, rather than the same ole same ole. Paul Cox 2009-03-10T17:45:31Z Ben Ilfeld comment-4317 2009-03-10T07:29:04Z 2009-03-10T07:29:04Z It does not have to be large. Ben Ilfeld 2009-03-10T07:29:04Z John Gladding comment-4315 2009-03-10T06:45:58Z 2009-03-10T06:45:58Z the future of the press? I am starting to think you are reading it right now. Readers no longer have to rely on traditional media outlets. Bloggers, Twitter, AP feeds, there's so many ways for people to get it. Citizen journalism may very well be the future of news, like it or not. It's sink or swim time... John Gladding 2009-03-10T06:45:58Z Geoff Samek comment-4314 2009-03-10T06:40:54Z 2009-03-10T06:40:54Z We do not allow raw HTML in our articles, that is why your HTML did not render and showed up in your text. I went ahead and fixed all of the places where you put HTML and now it renders properly. In the future, please use the tools in the article creation toolbar to add links and styling to your article. If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact me personally, geoff@sacramentopress.com. If you have any feedback about the article creation process please send that to feedback@sacramentopress.com. Geoff Samek 2009-03-10T06:40:54Z Colleen Belcher comment-4344 2009-03-10T06:38:15Z 2009-03-10T06:38:15Z For what it's worth, I really enjoyed reading your article. I think your points are valid and this was very well-written. Thanks for your evaluation of Cheryl Dell's article and your suggestions for the approach The Bee might take, Ryan! Colleen Belcher 2009-03-10T06:38:15Z sactomaya comment-4313 2009-03-10T05:52:22Z 2009-03-10T05:52:22Z I expect news organizations to come out on the other side of this with a funding model similar to that of public radio: corporate underwriting, foundation assistance and local support. For good measure, it would be nice if we issued some bonds to create an endowment as well, but I fear that's highly unlikely. sactomaya 2009-03-10T05:52:22Z Nicholas Walsh comment-4340 2009-03-10T04:08:19Z 2009-03-10T04:08:19Z "It is obvious that we Sacramento Press readers like local news. But how representative are we of the population at large?" JM actually I think that's a great question and its only my opinion, but I think the number is larger than one might imagine. Nicholas Walsh 2009-03-10T04:08:19Z Jeff McCrory comment-4310 2009-03-10T03:59:17Z 2009-03-10T03:59:17Z It is looking like the Bee is going non-profit whether it wants to or not. Matt Yglesias argues that the quality of journalism will probably rise as the profitability of newspapers falls, as happened during journalism's heyday of the postwar period. (LINK: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/01/newspapers_without_profits.php) Who exactly, though, is going to step in and create a foundation to fund the Bee? I don't think most Americans would support a government funded media. I don't think I'd support that. I also question how great the demand for local news is, esp. serious-minded or issue-oriented local news. Those splashy national headlines draw a lot of attention. There is probably a good reason that most of the purely local news gets relegated to a subsidiary section. It is obvious that we Sacramento Press readers like local news. But how representative are we of the population at large? Jeff McCrory 2009-03-10T03:59:17Z sactomaya comment-4309 2009-03-10T02:23:56Z 2009-03-10T02:23:56Z A while back I argued that I'd like to support the Bee in its mission to provide locally relevant information, but I didn't appreciate that the only channels available to me involved purchasing a paper I had no intention of reading. To this day, I subscribe to the Bee and recycle every copy, without opening half of them. A recent article on Slate argued that the press needs to go non-profit. I wholeheartedly agree. sactomaya 2009-03-10T02:23:56Z Dan comment-4299 2009-03-10T02:13:30Z 2009-03-10T02:13:30Z Let's see, there was a time when McClatchy and every other news company was making huge profits and they had quite a large number of investigative pieces and original reporting. Now they are making much less profit and the paper has shrunk. And yet you think there's an inverse relationship between McClatchy's profit motive and its ability to sustain a free press? Dan 2009-03-10T02:13:30Z Ryan Sharpe comment-4118 2009-03-04T18:28:33Z 2009-03-04T18:28:33Z I'm glad I ran into you at the Mass, too; I wouldn't have written the article if you hadn't suggested it! Ryan Sharpe 2009-03-04T18:28:33Z Makiko Yamashita comment-4099 2009-03-04T17:15:56Z 2009-03-04T17:15:56Z I have ridden with Critical Mass in Chicago a few times. With cheerful group of cyclists, a few hundreds of them, motorists were usually friendly to us. I have seen only one or two angry drivers. Usually drivers stop, show a surprised look, laugh, and wave us. Our happy and uplifting mood was contagious. There were usually police at the start and some major intersections and I felt that they were protecting both cyclists and motorists. I haven't seen police harassing cyclists when I rode. It sounds like a different story in Sacramento. But now that I learned about the CM in Sacramento, I am excited to join the next ride! Makiko Yamashita 2009-03-04T17:15:56Z John Boyer comment-4115 2009-03-04T16:31:18Z 2009-03-04T16:31:18Z Hurray! Sacpress brings us another bike story! Keep em coming! http://dutchbikeseattle.com/weblog/?page_id=37 Written in the late 1800s this is being written today, a hundred years later. Bikes combined with people power remain a constant. I recommend more group rides to create more popular opinion. Celebrate ANYTHING on a bike and we all win! John Boyer 2009-03-04T16:31:18Z Jenna Langer comment-4113 2009-03-04T05:57:44Z 2009-03-04T05:57:44Z February was my first critical mass! You can see me there in the red fleece! I love the concept, and I can't wait for the weather to get nicer to double the turnout. It really turned out to be a perfect evening for a bike ride. Jenna Langer 2009-03-04T05:57:44Z trapper comment-3849 2009-02-25T05:07:34Z 2009-02-25T05:07:34Z They should offer a special to those who have been laid off without a job... getting furloughed is nothing compared to the 9.3% who are getting less than half of what they were before on unemployment. trapper 2009-02-25T05:07:34Z