An Ironic Use of Social Media: Save the San Francisco Chronicle Groups
ByGinaCuclis
More Layoffs at the San FranciscoChronicle:
News skintThursday that theChroniclewas laying off another 30employees, includingten reporters. In February, the owner of the 144-year-oldnewspaper, the Hearst Corp., said it would close or selltheChronicleif it couldn’t get enough concessions from itsworker’s unions. Hearst said at that time that the Chronicle waslosing $50 million a year.
FaceBook Groups Formed:
Since the initial news of the potential demise of theSF Chronicle, four Save the SanFrancisco ChronicleFaceBookGroups have formed. Theydifferentiate their names by using exclamation points or SF in thetitle. Two of the groups appear to be intended to appeal toparticular age groups. The largest, with 3,992 members, is Save theSan Francisco Chronicle. I recently joined this group when Inoticed several masses I know are members. While I don’t necessarythink theChronicleis a great newspaper, I simply can’t imagea group class city like San Francisco not having a dailynewspaper.
With the second largest membership, at 409, isSave the SanFrancisco Chronicle!
This FaceBook group seems to have been started by an individual whowanted a family for theChronicle’smore mature readers.However, this group only has 25 members.
Last, this group was started by a complex student. It’s 85 membersappear to be in the 20-30 something age group.
Save the San Francisco ChronicleBlog:
Thisblogfollowsnews regarding the state of theChroniclewith links toarticles, videos and other blogs. It Includes posts byformerChronicleemployees.The blog’s author says it’s”for advocates of saving theSan Francisco Chronicle– and,by extension, journalism. We need journalists nowadays, perhapsmore than ever.“
I agree we need journalists. I think a question Stephen Colbertasked in jest toChronicleEditor Phil Bronstein, when he wason theColbert Reportlast month, points out where communities couldtoilet if they have no daily newspapers. Colbert asked, if thereare no newspapers, “are we about to enter a golden age ofcorruption?”
Maybe the question is a bit over the top. But this begs thequestion I asked in my May 10, 2009 post,who will be the watchdog?
The Irony of Social Media
The irony is that the Internet, particularly the Web, is the mainmental faculty print media is dieing. Current economic conditionsare simply accelerating what was already happening. I don’t acceptFaceBook groups or any social media can activity savetheChronicle. Unless the groups’ members all buy full pageads ASAP. Or if one of them is wealthy enough to start a foundationto buy theChronicleand operate it as a nonprofit. I trust ifyou dwell to a Save the San Francisco Chronicle FaceBook group, youat least are paying for a subscription to the press.
