New Sunday Paper Website Launches, Apparently Online-only
The Sunday Paper website launched as promised and it seems apparent that in addition to there being no more news, there will be no more print edition. The website’s logo now says Sundaypaper.com, and the About Us page makes numerous references to Sundaypaper.com but not a print edition.
And in an interview with WABE January 04, Sunday Paper publisher Patrick Best referred to the whole thing as a business decision. He said he was primarily a businessman and that even though SP as a print paper with news coverage could sustain itself, he did not believe it could grow. And he said if you’re not growing as a business, you’re dead. Wow – whatever happened to the virtue of small-scale enterprise? So it all came down to money.
As the editor and publisher of a publication where I work for almost nothing because I believe in the value of the service that the publication provides to the community, I found the whole exchange to be quite appalling. WABE asked Best several times about whether he was concerned about a voice being left behind in the media market, and he said yes, but basically it was as if that had nothing to do with him or his decision.
He also said he had “built a better mousetrap” for how to run a profitable arts, entertainment, and coupon publication online. Yes, because Atlanta consumers are all mice waiting to be trapped.