Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

Some questions about Government Advertising in Newspapers

This story presents some questions such as:

  1. All the GNWT pulled was their job ads, which was just space on a page that was sold to them by the papers. Anyone could buy this space. Why was this specific paper so dependant on one advertiser?
  2. How can we blame the GNWT for pulling their ads and moving online? Moving online is not something new. It has been happening for years now, reoccurring business planning should come into play to evaluate a situation and a business’ stability.
  3. Why does this article not show statistics of from both sides. Number of jobs found online vs. in print, number of readers of print vs. visitors to the new careers website.

At the end of the day, while it is the Government, it is still business. If you can save money and get better results elsewhere, why wouldn’t you do that?

[Via ‘The life or death of newspapers in the North’ – North – CBC News]

How do you explain this thing!

To continue on a series of things I’m bad at I will go on to approaching people.

I don’t know how Journalist do it, I wonder if they learn it in school…. anyways. The challenge I have been prompted with lately is selling YkOnline. I now have the hits and traffic to sustain the site, as long as I continue to write, so I thought it would be a good time to try and sell some advertising. The reason I want to sell adverting is simple, I want to feed this passion. I love writing about Yellowknife and what is going on but it is starting to take up to much time. My problem is I am almost afraid of approaching businesses about it. I don’t know what to say to try and sell it to them. It is a toss up whether or not businesses in this town need another place to advertise. They already have NNSL, CJCD, YkTrader, Coffee Break News and a couple others, so what I would have to do is prove to them that I am different. For some reason I just can’t bring myself to go face to face with them and ask.

Birds of a Feather Tweet Together

I suppose I shouldn’t have expected an highly detailed article about what Twitter is but I didn’t think he was going to make me sound goofy or arrogant by saying I assured him people would join. I didn’t tell him that all of Yellowknife was going to be on Twitter. I might have said something like, eventually Yellowknifer’s will join the site out of curiosity, just like any other social networking site. Sorry Jean I forgot to mention that he mentioned you.

Here is the article:

Click to see full size

Did South of 20 Actually Go South?

You know as much as I enjoy reading all the blogs and articles online I enjoy sitting down and picking up a newspaper. New Media may be taking over but old media still has something about it I like.

Now although some people have there “opinions” on the Yellowknifer and sometimes I do too, I still enjoy reading our little local paper. Today was no different, there were many articles in the paper today that were of interest. Mr. Humphries shared his thoughts on how we can avoid a recession by opening all dumps nation wide to salvagers. Shelagh Montgomery wants to take down the oil sands and make everyone walk everywhere let Alberta know that Yellowknife wants to halt the oil sands production with out thinking about all the jobs and money that would be lost. Then we had a bunch of other things, Rock & Ice Ultra, Headframe discussions, Caribou drinking Beer Caribou Carnivals Beer Garden and so on.

The one thing I love reading in a paper is the columns and opinions of people. I guess that just comes from being a blogger and doing the same thing. Reading someones views on something is not only informative but it give you a different perspective on the topic. Whether I agree with them or not I think about it. I go back to the quote I had in my last post. I write to not only entertain but to engage readers in discussion and make them think. That is what I want to be able to do as a writer blogger.

As I finished the paper and thought about all the things I had just read and who wrote them I only wondered what happened to the “South of 20” column. The weekly article that was write by a student or a person under the age of 20 hence the name South of 20. I said that I loved reading peoples columns and if there is one thing I love reading more than that it would be articles writen by young people. I think young people have more to offer than most think, I just think they don’t get the chance to say it. This is also why I try and encourage my friends to blog and vioce their opnions. Everyone has something to say they just need to find the right place to say it.

Photo Credit: The MediaMentor