I was going through some old facebook posts and saw that Newspaper Tree advertised a position for "publisher." You can see it HERE.
Looks like they're looking to make this into corporate driven bilingual news source that will fail so spectacularly, it might actually be entertaining to watch.
They want somebody with five years experience in the business of running a newspaper or a digital publishing outlet. That's code word for "lap dog who has been trained to do nothing risky." You can guarantee that any paper under the control of the old fuddy duds at the community foundation will do nothing more than offer in depth articles on the opera and symphony with some highlighted philanthropist thrown in for their propensity to donate to anyone who says nice things about them. It will basically be an on line version of the El Paso Inc. - pictures of rich white people engaged in activities enjoyed mostly by rich white people.
Gone will be the days of investigative reporting and edgy editorials where uncomfortable ideas and facts are explored. No more Crowder and Negron sticking it to "the man." It will be "the man" managing the talents of Crowder and Negron... if they even get invited back.
All we need is another tightly controlled, scaredy cat news and opinion source where the insiders shine through their influence over the people doing the writing.
Newspaper Tree is dead and the funeral starts the day the hire some corporate schmuck to make sure nobody says anything compelling, interesting or otherwise useful to the masses who are dying for real news and opinion.
What a waste!
Maybe so, we will see...there is also a local indymedia.org site coming to EP/Juarez and elpasonews.org pays $50 for any story or investigative story it publishes.
Posted by: Carl Starr | May 23, 2011 at 02:23 PM
So did you apply?
Joking
Posted by: Tim Collins | May 23, 2011 at 02:35 PM
It's always a bad idea for non-profits to step into publishing. They answer to a board that gives lots of money and wants things their way. Ever served on a non-profit board? No way NPT will ever remotely look like, sound like or be like it used to be. I liked it even better when they did the "Survivor" version of City council about 8 years ago. Now that was funny.
Posted by: NPT mourner | May 23, 2011 at 03:27 PM
Didn't Keith sell it to Hunt ?
Posted by: NPT reader | May 23, 2011 at 05:01 PM
No. Keith sold it (archives and the name I guess) to The Community Foundation that is now trying to set up a not for profit online newspaper. why in the world anyone would think the NPT archives is important is beyond me. remember sito and david crowder said the Community Foundation was applying for a $250,000 grant to start up NPT. I believe they got the grant. It's just the foundation moves at a snails pace. Why does everything have to be about hunt?
Posted by: history lesson | May 23, 2011 at 11:48 PM
When they announced the sale to the EPCF I said it was a good thing it was being saved but the EPCF being involved was a bad move.
It just seems filled with so many possible conflicts of interest and potential loss of support for the EPCF and the wonderful projects they have helped fund and grow in the city in recent years.
I guess we'll see how that works out and what kind of NPT rises from the ashes...if it ever actually does.
To address "history Lesson" questioning why the archives are valuable...
First, the obvious value of having an archive of all previous stories published by Newspaper Tree for users to be able to search through and reference for whatever reason they choose is fairly valuable simply because it's a great feature to be able to offer on a website.
That brings us to reason number two.
Those archives can actually be used as a revenue stream for the publication. As some of you may have noticed on many newspaper websites, you can read previously published articles for only a short period of time, say 10 days, then after that they are "archived" and only available for a fee or to paid subscribers.
Time for reason number three.
TRAFFIC
You may have noticed and wondered why the Newspaper Tree website has remained online even though it hasn't been updated for close to 2 years.
The main reason has to do with search engines like google and yahoo and the traffic they provide to websites. Every day search engines like google and yahoo send out "bots" to read every website on the internet. They then "archive" that content for future use..by who? by YOU and people like you doing searches for information that then find their way to websites like NPT. If NPT had removed that content or the entire website it would cease to have traffic value because the search engines would eventually remove all the archived NPT pages they have in their systems and any future NPT website would lose all that potential traffic.
That traffic equals eyeballs on their content and the most important of all, eyeballs on the advertisements sitting right along side the content.
All that equals $$$ if its structured and managed properly by very experienced and savvy people.
That lack of savvy and experience was the reason Newspaper Tree failed, they were absolutely clueless on how to recognize, capitalize and exploit all the potential revenue streams.
Posted by: Robnelp | May 24, 2011 at 02:12 AM
After reading NPT for a period of years, came to feel it was esentially the office journal of a local senator's office.
Posted by: Old Fart | May 24, 2011 at 10:42 AM