David Carr of The New York Times shares a quaint story about a small newspaper making its way in the world with no help whatsoever from the web.
TriCityNews of Monmouth County, N.J., is prospering precisely because it aggressively ignores the Web.
“Why would I put anything on the Web?” asked Dan Jacobson, the publisher and owner of the newspaper. “I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper. Why should we give our readers any incentive whatsoever to not look at our content along with our advertisements, a large number of which are beautiful and cheap full-page ads?”
Mr. Jacobson is more than happy to be known as the Fred Flintstone of the publishing world. “There may come a time when the Web is all there is, and we will try to adapt,” he said, “and if we don’t, well, hey, we had a great run. But right now, the Web makes no business sense for us.”
To quote Bartle Bogle Hegarty, “When the world zigs, zag.”
