Dear Editor,
There has been much weeping and wailing at the announced shuttering. But how much may be self-inflicted. Not understanding the tsunami that is digital. Part pay walls never work. Look at the New York Times in which Mark Thompson slammed in a full pay wall with a few treats the other side like crosswords. It worked. I was never tempted to subscribe to the half SN at $25c a day.
Also the letters page may have been a national town square but it became the place to find the prolix and the anti-government whingers. In short a bit dull. The paper was badly in need of a redesign to make it easier to read. True of most Guyanese papers. The days of ink on dead trees is gone. SN failed also to go with the national zeitgeist and recognise Guyana the emerging petro state. Saying ’leave it in the ground’ or ‘we was cheated by XM’ is no argument .Follow the money.
So economics and the market dictated. The Government did not help with its large advertising debt. Who will take up the baton and make a phoenix out of the ashes of ‘my’ paper? Time for some positive thinking.