Poof Goes The Norwalk Advocate

The Stamford Advocate has a spiffy new web site. Finally someone with a sense of design has taken control over there. But what happened to the Norwalk edition? Sadly a 404 when www.norwalkadvocate.com is typed in. The Stamford Advocate has also brought comments back.

Meanwhile, not to leave our hometown news journal out of it, The Hour has joined the blog world, with their newshound blog.

The media business is still a precarious one. There’s a real need for quality journalism, and yet the old way of developing ad dollars to support print publications is a hard one, when most people get their news online, and not necessarily by visiting web pages. Advertisers know this, and are seeking new ways of reaching new customers all the time.

The Stamford Advocate has basically conceded expanding their audience while The Hour has grasped that they need to widen their audience. My prediction is that The Hour has a better shot at navigating 2010 then the Advocate.

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  • The Crumb

    Here is some news for the advocate: Today was garbage day in my neighborhood and some s.o.b removed the garbage from my cans and then stole them. Garbage strewn all over and no cans. What is purpose of stealing used garbage cans? Are people that desperate? Anyone have this ever happen to them?

  • Secondhand Rose

    Boy, that’s a new one on me! I’ve seen people rifle through the recyclables to get bottles for the cash deposits, and I’ve heard of people whose recycle bins have been stolen after pickups, but I’ve never heard of this. Unbelievable.

    Maybe Oscar the Grouch is looking for a new home? hahaha

  • East Norwalker

    The phone number for the Norwalk Advocate has also been disconnected.

  • Kurm Udgeon

    From the point of view of a person who can read English, the wrong paper is left standing in Norwalk. The “minute” continues to baffle me as to how it survives. I guess that a trust fund baby is a trust fund baby. I will be interested to see how a paper which can’t engage it’s own home town, can expand it’s reach to bore or disinterest other communities. There must be something to being a home grown product, not owned by a conglomerate.

    • Secondhand Rose

      I’ve been wondering that myself. Over a year ago when I responded to a help wanted ad I was told during the intereview that the presses had been sold for scrap, the paper was being printed in Westchester County, the building was up for sale, and nobody knew whether the paper would even exist at the end of the year, and I was advised not to take the job (after already having worked there for more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s.) And still it goes on. Either I was being deliberately misled, or there are things afoot that none of us are aware of, LOL.

      That being said, I do remember hearing during my former employment there that the paper cannot be sold to another publishing company; its board must be allowed to dissolve the holdings instead. Don’t know how true that is – but back in the late 1980s when the Stamford Advocate was making their inroads into Norwalk and creating their Norwalk edition (the Norwalk Advocate that you’re referring to here) and they as well as the CT Post were seriously attempting to overthrow The Hour, such a takeover never happened. It’s a prime market and both publishing companies badly wanted it.

      Judging by the amount of Stamford-based news stories appearing on The Hour’s pages these days, I’m speculating that there has already been a deal done which just hasn’t been made public yet.

    • turfgrrl

      Kurm Udgeon: The Hour still employs live bodies to cover Norwalk, witness the extensive photo and video coverage they provide. Do we all wish they’d do more local “hard” news and investigative news which they don’t really bother with? Sure. But as one who spends a not insignificant amount of time on “investigative” stories, they are not cheap to produce, from a time standpoint. The problem facing The Hour, and most news/media companies is that they haven’t figured out that they need to be structured like a tech company. The most important asset they have is the relationship they have with their readers.

  • Barnstorm

    Crumb, stealing garbage cans is what some media specialists call “doing research”. I agree with Kurm that the “Hour” should be the one to go. If we were to follow the Hour’s admonition to “Buy Local” we’d all be buying the Advocate.

    I see a parallel between the Hour and the New York Mets. In order to be successful they need a completely new management structure. In order to achieve this, they also both need completely new owners.

    • The Crumb

      Barnstorm: You have point, except that they left my garbage and stole the cans and lids! I’ve heard of people diging through garbage for information, but taking garbage cans? Why?

  • Secondhand Rose

    Brooks Newspapers (Norwalk Citizen-News, Darien News, etc.) was another family owned local publishing company that has been swallowed by the CT Post. Same for the News-Times up in Danbury, which was sold three separate times during the 2 years I worked for them. Both newspaper companies are now a part of the Hearst conglomerate that includes the CT Post, Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. And having worked for both companies before, during and after their sales I can attest that things were better BEFORE the sales, and rapidly went downhill afterwards.

    Needless to say, unless a person wishes to work for a weekly paper instead of a daily one (with commensurate pay, unfortunately) they are out of luck in Fairfield County. It’s now at the point where every major daily newspaper in Fairfield County is owned by Hearst. There are a lot of good longtime newspaper people who have been put out of work by these greedy conglomerates, and for no good reason.

  • Kevin

    Oddly… I was out of town for the holidays. Not home to take the trash out Tuesday Morning. Yet, when I cam home, trash was everywhere and a random never-before-seen trash can was laying halfway down my driveway!

  • parklover

    I still get the Advocate, and there actually hasn’t been a Norwalk edition in a couple of years, but it still has good regional coverage. Where else would I read about about the Milford cop who just got a ticket for shooting deer without a license, but who previously had been charged with posing as his twin brother to sleep with his brother’s girlfriend, who freaked when she saw he didn’t have a cowboy tattoo on his ass, and the phony twin forced her to continue anyway. He is accused of criminal impersonation and sexual assault, as well as shooting deer without a license. (Today’s Advocate).

    And about all the garbage can drama, there were 50 mile an hour winds yesterday, and it was garbage day in my neighborhood, and I had to drive around cans strewn all over the road. My cans were all the way down the street after they were emptied and rolled away. Not much you can do about that, except search and retrieve.

    • Secondhand Rose

      The Norwalk Advocate offices used to be on West Avenue in Norwalk. When they vacated those offices (back around 2004 or thereabouts) it was only a short period of time before the Norwalk “edition” of the Stamford Advocate ceased publication.

      And the reason you’re reading Milford news in a Stamford paper is because the publishing company (Hearst) which owns the Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time also owns the Connecticut Post, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post above. The CT Post is considered Hearst’s “flagship” newspaper in Fairfield County, and that’s why you’ll see stories about Bridgeport, Milford, Stratford and so on in newspapers in towns such as Norwalk or Danbury – because ALL the daily newspapers in Fairfield County are owned by the same publishing company as the Connecticut Post, and all the news stories are coming from the Connecticut Post for the most part.

      By the way, it might interest some to know that the Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time are being published at the News-Times building on Main Street in Danbury, while The Hour is being published somewhere in the wilds of Westchester NY. And delivery of the Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time centers from Danbury as well. So if your Stamford paper is late, that’s why. It’s no longer coming to you from Stamford.

      • Secondhand Rose is lost

        Secondhand Rose you say so much but you say nothing.

        • Secondhand Rose

          Hi Mikey.

          • Secondhand Rose is lost

            How are your many many cats

    • turfgrrl

      parklover: And yet Milford gets a Target and Whole Foods while Norwalk has to suffer along with both Trader Joe and Whole Foods making their home in Darien and Westport. Maybe if more people offered to have cowboy tattoos ….

    • The Crumb

      I can’t, because everybody in my neighborhood hates me.

  • The Crumb

    Just wondering? just what does Trader Joes(or Trader Ming or Trader Giotto), Whole Foods and Target have to do with the price of tea in china?