Nikos Konstandaras is managing editor and a columnist of Kathimerini, the leading Greek morning daily. He is also the founding editor of Kathimerini’s English Edition, which is published as a supplement to The International Herald Tribune in Greece, Cyprus and Albania. He worked as a correspondent for The Associated Press from 1989 to 1997 before joining the Greek press and has reported from many countries in the region.
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Nikos Konstandaras
Athens, Greece
Nikos Konstandaras is managing editor and a columnist of Kathimerini, the leading Greek morning daily. He is also the founding editor of Kathimerini’s English Edition, which is published as a supplement to The International Herald Tribune in Greece, Cyprus and Albania.
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If WP starts charging for the Internet they better figure on dropping the pop-ups and adds that is all over my sceen. I look at them so that should impress the WP department. I see the NYT is looking at this too and the same to them.
Dear Niko the-glass-is-half-full Konstandaras
I regularly browse the online versions of the NY Times and the WaPo.
A few comments...
Have any newspapers made any money with their online editions, yet? The NY Times tried to charge for online access to their opinion columns a couple years ago but that didn't last long. I just saw on their website that they're offering a more newspaper-like organized online edition for about $15 per month, but reading the FAQs it seems to contain the same articles available for free at NYTimes.com (except it includes the crossword puzzle)...
If there is no middleman between the reader and the journalist how does the journalist pay his rent? I think we're headed for less actual journalists generating original news and more frequent use of the AP and Reuters for websites to fill up their screens.
Mark
Greece
My local paper is strewn with bad news--greatest crises since dinosaurs got beaned by a meteror-- and I gave it up a long time ago. I read a big city paper and this year opinions on the Post online . I agree that a paper edition is nicer, but the digital version they offer is affordable. Only problem with it is that it is too slow in their trial version. It takes an agonizing 6 or 8 seconds to go from one page to another using an internet connection of basic dsl, I was dial-up a long time. That digital version is around $10 a month and viewed on the computer, not the readers which are a different system and require an initial $380 cost for the device. Computer graphics people know ways to reduce the file size, I know how if it is a single graphic file, yet apparently executives see the world as all 3g dsl. I like the Post for its opinions and wouldn't mind paying a couple dollars a month just to get that, I don't mind advertising as you need to make a profit. There is talk of a possible subsidy from government, I have no opinion on that. The digital version offers a picture of the complete page, not just a list of stories offering somewhat the feel of a hard copy edition. No one's going to give up papers whichever way it evolves.
Nikos' ridiculous claim that newspapers help us "make sense of the chaos and to try present the bigger picture in a constantly fracturing world" is proven dead wrong by the WaPo banner across the top of this page.
Nobody fanned the flames of Bush's misadventures harder and hotter than the WaPo. They closed their eyes to all logic and pushed the world into war and wrong.
We need to dump newspapers in the garbage can where paper waste belongs and get our own news off all the sites and blogs that tell you just what happened, and make up our own minds, and be allowed to vote for candidates who will do what we say, and kick out the ruling cognoscentis who are trying to trick the world so they can squeeze what they want out of it.
If newspapers disappear in print form, so much of the romance of journalism will have gone forever. I was weaned on print, well before the dawning of the computer age, and I miss the color, clangor and competitiveness of the old-fashioned newsroom. I miss the rustle of newsprint. I miss the smell of ink. I miss the roar of the printing presses. I miss the crusty characters who were part of the folklore of journalism. News -- well, I can get the news anytime, anywhere these days, including on my iPhone and BlackBerry. Call me old-fashioned, if you will, but I can't imagine a future without a newspaper in my ink-stained hands.
Nikos Konstandaras, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your "Newspapers' Paperless Future".
You are obviously a man of the trade who has vision and who holds his profession in high esteem. I believe journalism has a future because of people like you. There is indeed great joy in journalist and reader being close, and they can be, even cyberspace.
That said, I would personally give more credit to "the multitude of single voices on the Internet", but consider one need not quarrel over that...
Wishing you and journalists like you all the best.
My experience with trying to deal with the Washington Post on line suggests to me that any Newspaper that tries to go paperless will be putting itself out of business in short order.
The paperless Newspaper is the poor cousin to the weekly advertiser papers supplied to small towns by Realtors or other businesses. They rarely carry news current, accurate, and worth paying any attention to, because the paper is solely paid for by advertisers, and those advertisers won't risk bad press. The current online editions of any paper I have tried are pale afterimages of whatever ink might have adhered to the newsprint they went out on.
Yet every day those news papers ignore or throw away more salable product than they squeez onto their pages, and never realize it.
A PROPERLY organized and edited paper should be highly profitable, since it can offer several services badly needed on the internet, and not currently available at any price anywhere.
But News Paper people are so sure they have the right ideas that you can't get their attention at all.
Wanna bet I CAN'T tell you how to make LOTS of money with the WAPO? The WAPO wants to take exactly that bet.
It is a shame that newspapers and it's traditional structure will go away. And it will go away, in the not to distant future. I just hope that the "papers" will figure out a way to make money in new media so they can survive. We really do need them. I did a commentary on this.
PostGlobal is an interactive conversation on global issues moderated by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria and David Ignatius of The Washington Post. It is produced jointly by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, as is On Faith, a conversation on religion. Please send your comments, questions and suggestions for PostGlobal to Lauren Keane, its editor and producer.
All Comments (8)
If WP starts charging for the Internet they better figure on dropping the pop-ups and adds that is all over my sceen. I look at them so that should impress the WP department. I see the NYT is looking at this too and the same to them.
May 30, 2009 7:20 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 30, 2009 19:20
Dear Niko the-glass-is-half-full Konstandaras
I regularly browse the online versions of the NY Times and the WaPo.
A few comments...
Have any newspapers made any money with their online editions, yet? The NY Times tried to charge for online access to their opinion columns a couple years ago but that didn't last long. I just saw on their website that they're offering a more newspaper-like organized online edition for about $15 per month, but reading the FAQs it seems to contain the same articles available for free at NYTimes.com (except it includes the crossword puzzle)...
If there is no middleman between the reader and the journalist how does the journalist pay his rent? I think we're headed for less actual journalists generating original news and more frequent use of the AP and Reuters for websites to fill up their screens.
Mark
Greece
May 28, 2009 12:52 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 28, 2009 12:52
My local paper is strewn with bad news--greatest crises since dinosaurs got beaned by a meteror-- and I gave it up a long time ago. I read a big city paper and this year opinions on the Post online . I agree that a paper edition is nicer, but the digital version they offer is affordable. Only problem with it is that it is too slow in their trial version. It takes an agonizing 6 or 8 seconds to go from one page to another using an internet connection of basic dsl, I was dial-up a long time. That digital version is around $10 a month and viewed on the computer, not the readers which are a different system and require an initial $380 cost for the device. Computer graphics people know ways to reduce the file size, I know how if it is a single graphic file, yet apparently executives see the world as all 3g dsl. I like the Post for its opinions and wouldn't mind paying a couple dollars a month just to get that, I don't mind advertising as you need to make a profit. There is talk of a possible subsidy from government, I have no opinion on that. The digital version offers a picture of the complete page, not just a list of stories offering somewhat the feel of a hard copy edition. No one's going to give up papers whichever way it evolves.
May 27, 2009 11:42 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 27, 2009 11:42
Nikos' ridiculous claim that newspapers help us "make sense of the chaos and to try present the bigger picture in a constantly fracturing world" is proven dead wrong by the WaPo banner across the top of this page.
Nobody fanned the flames of Bush's misadventures harder and hotter than the WaPo. They closed their eyes to all logic and pushed the world into war and wrong.
We need to dump newspapers in the garbage can where paper waste belongs and get our own news off all the sites and blogs that tell you just what happened, and make up our own minds, and be allowed to vote for candidates who will do what we say, and kick out the ruling cognoscentis who are trying to trick the world so they can squeeze what they want out of it.
May 27, 2009 9:44 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 27, 2009 09:44
If newspapers disappear in print form, so much of the romance of journalism will have gone forever. I was weaned on print, well before the dawning of the computer age, and I miss the color, clangor and competitiveness of the old-fashioned newsroom. I miss the rustle of newsprint. I miss the smell of ink. I miss the roar of the printing presses. I miss the crusty characters who were part of the folklore of journalism. News -- well, I can get the news anytime, anywhere these days, including on my iPhone and BlackBerry. Call me old-fashioned, if you will, but I can't imagine a future without a newspaper in my ink-stained hands.
May 27, 2009 8:54 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 27, 2009 08:54
Nikos Konstandaras, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your "Newspapers' Paperless Future".
You are obviously a man of the trade who has vision and who holds his profession in high esteem. I believe journalism has a future because of people like you. There is indeed great joy in journalist and reader being close, and they can be, even cyberspace.
That said, I would personally give more credit to "the multitude of single voices on the Internet", but consider one need not quarrel over that...
Wishing you and journalists like you all the best.
May 27, 2009 2:48 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 27, 2009 02:48
My experience with trying to deal with the Washington Post on line suggests to me that any Newspaper that tries to go paperless will be putting itself out of business in short order.
The paperless Newspaper is the poor cousin to the weekly advertiser papers supplied to small towns by Realtors or other businesses. They rarely carry news current, accurate, and worth paying any attention to, because the paper is solely paid for by advertisers, and those advertisers won't risk bad press. The current online editions of any paper I have tried are pale afterimages of whatever ink might have adhered to the newsprint they went out on.
Yet every day those news papers ignore or throw away more salable product than they squeez onto their pages, and never realize it.
A PROPERLY organized and edited paper should be highly profitable, since it can offer several services badly needed on the internet, and not currently available at any price anywhere.
But News Paper people are so sure they have the right ideas that you can't get their attention at all.
Wanna bet I CAN'T tell you how to make LOTS of money with the WAPO? The WAPO wants to take exactly that bet.
May 26, 2009 9:27 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 26, 2009 21:27
Thanks Nikos,
It is a shame that newspapers and it's traditional structure will go away. And it will go away, in the not to distant future. I just hope that the "papers" will figure out a way to make money in new media so they can survive. We really do need them. I did a commentary on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl1HsZpKAdQ
May 26, 2009 2:47 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 26, 2009 14:47