Aggie administrators kill print version of The Battalion

Innnteresting, and per the Trib, apparently was done with ZERO forewarning to journo students, or input by them.

President M. Katherine Banks (always distrust people who go by first initial, middle name, until they prove otherwise!) made the call herself, according to A&M's dean of students. Banks claimed that, per a 2021 recommendation to bring back a journalism department there (dead since 2003), it was inline with focusing on digital journalism in general.

Problem? That journalism department ain't back yet, and who knows if it will be. A working group first discussed that as a possibility, nothing more, the day before Banks killed the print paper. Besides, Battalion staff note that most ad money for them still comes from print. Oops.

Good journalism students there are of course, and rightly, journalistically skeptical, even suspicious, about the official line on this.

How long will people still subscribe to the Gainesville Register?

 I had teed up another post about the Texas paper, but eventually deleted it, as I decided it was too nitpicky.

Not this time.

I don't know everything about the newspaper world, but I do know this much. 

You should NEVER lead with a weather story, and by weather story, I mean prediction about a future storm.

Weather damages story? Absolutely.

Weather prediction story? NEVER at a non-daily, and that was true even pre-Internet.

It's true in spades today, especially when due to a mix of numerous factors, exact paths for a winter storm can change dramatically.

Less than 72 hours before the Gainesville Register's Tuesday, Feb. 1, issue was on store stands, and just 48 hours or so before it was put to bed, the forecast for the Texoma area was predicting single-digit lows and several inches of snow. By the time I got said paper in my hands, Witter Storm Landon for this area still had some snow, and now ice, but all low temperatures above 12 degrees. So, on that part, as I look at Weather Underground, I think the National Weather Service is wrong.

But, right or wrong (and weather porn or not) ... you're engaging in a moving target when your readers can check the NWS website, Weather Underground, or weather apps on their smartphones.

Their sports guy is pretty good, and gets after it, but ... 

You can get sports from radio or streaming video. And, on the news side, with the competition of a "shopper" that actually offers more news at times than the paid paper?