Los Angeles Times Real Estate Section “Put To Bed”
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The Los Angeles Times has published it’s last real estate section. That was the word yesterday out of the venerable paper as cut backs and lack of interest hastened the end.
And I am not all to sad. The role of the internet has superseded the need for dead trees to bring the latest news of the real estate world. The combination of bloggers, websites, and online news sources provide everything those with a passion for real estate want to read.
The real reason for the real estate sections demise is not on the editorial side, it is because the advertising supporting it has dried up. When things were going gangbusters, throwing advertising dollars at the local rag was just a continuation on how things were done.
With the tightening market, real estate brokers and developers now are much more circumspect in their advertising spending and needing to create results, not just appease the sellers.
And when the dollars stop flowing in, there is no rational reason to spend the money on newsprint and editorial. The end of the LA Times section is a harbinger of things to come for other papers around the country.
So rest in peace LA Times real estate section. The quality work will still continue, just now it will be via Peter Viles on the web. Instead of waiting a week for the presses to run, the stories will be up on the internet (where the readers are) once the editors give the okay.
In case you missed the announcement today in Real Estate, because of reductions in staff and space, the Sunday Real Estate section has printed its final edition.
Real estate coverage will continue to appear online throughout the week. Hot Property, Neighborly Advice and the occasional Pardon Our Dust remodeling tale will appear in print as part of the new Saturday Home section. Home of the Week, Southland home-price charts and other features will appear in Sunday Business. Real estate articles will appear in both sections. via L.A. Land
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Pingback by Priority One News! » Beginning of the end…. on 30 July 2008:
[…] I read this post and it resonated what we have been talking about for awhile. The days of the Newspaper and Real […]
Comment by Patrick Duffy on 30 July 2008:
I really don’t think it’s that simple, but it’s true that times are changing.
Most real estate bloggers don’t create new content (aside from a few sites such as Calculated Risk), but simply point out articles, reports and citations they find elsewhere on the web (as does mine).
Try to find a single feature article Peter Viles has written since he started L.A. Land, and you won’t find anything. That’s nothing against Peter (I think he’s done a great job), it’s just that his role as a blogger is different than that of a reporter. I don’t think you can simply dismiss the loss of a section with 600-word book reviews and 1500-word feature stories (some of which I’ve written) as something easily replaced by most blogs, with shorter postings that can lack depth and detail.
I think both have their place, but I wonder if no one’s creating new content, what will most bloggers have to talk about?
Comment by Tony Sena on 2 August 2008:
Patrick, I disagree. Real Estate Brokers and Agents are spending their money where the clients are and thats online. The newspapers around the country have been losing readership every year due to the accessibility of getting the news online. The same goes for Real Estate. If you are interested in looking at homes for sell or getting information on a particular real estate market, you search google, not the local newspaper.
Pingback by Diaspora of Journalists at Media Transparent on 16 August 2008:
[…] Newspapers must cost cut and writers are fired. Journalists (now known as “information providers”) are positioning themselves to leverage specific expertise that bloggers don’t own - in-depth, quality research and reporting. This is in large part the mission of Spot.US - to fund raise and compensate journalists on projects for the common good. More recent evidence of the Diaspora: SFChronicle lets Real Estate Columnist go Adding up the Newspaper Cutbacks LA Times drops Print Real Estate Section […]