Obsolescence
Desperate Newspapers Pin Hopes on Annoyed Readers.
News publishers have always treated readers like commodities — because that's what readers are. The real customers for
publishers aren't readers, but advertisers. Readers are the product. It's not quite that simple, of course, and more
enlightened publishers treat readers with respect and cover the news fearlessly (which actually makes the readers more valuable to advertisers).
Will News Reporting Die? [Scroll
down] In that America of six decades ago, there was one daily newspaper for every $24 million the federal government
spent during the year, and every day there was one copy of a newspaper circulated for every 2.8 people. [...] In the America
of 2009, there was one daily newspaper for every $2.5 billion the federal government spent during the year, and every day
there was one copy of a newspaper circulated for every 6.6 people.
College newspapers feel financial
pinch. Editor Joseph Valdez says he has seen his newspaper's budget "cut drastically" the past two years. His
print paper may soon be eliminated, as the push continues to take news to what many see as newspapers' ultimate destination: the
Internet, with all of its uncertain profitability.
Cable Loses Nearly Three Million
Subscribers to Streaming. The rise of streaming television is something I've been covering rather
obsessively on my Daily Call Sheet for going on a year now. Not because I have any kind of inside information
or data, but because if you connect the dots of the hundreds of various news stories that have been written about the
phenomenon, you can see that something seismic is happening.
New Report
Names Newspapers as the Fastest Shrinking Industry in America. A new report issued this week from the Council of Economic
Advisers (CEA) and social media network Linkedin that studied a wide range of industries showed that the newspaper industry suffered the
biggest decline of any from 2007-2011. While renewables grew 49.2%, the Internet 24.6% and online publishing 24.3%, newspapers
led the way in a downward direction, shrinking a whopping 28.4%.
Washington
Post profits drop 22 percent. The Washington Post Co. said fourth-quarter profit fell 22 percent after
enrollment at its Kaplan education unit and print advertising sales declined. Net income fell to $61.7 million,
or $8.03 a share, from $79 million, or $9.42, a year earlier, the company said Friday [2/24/2012]. Revenue dropped
10 percent to $1.06 billion.
Why Pay to Read Lies? Newspapers in Decline.
Like a biblical punishment, newspapers are feeling the brunt of the changes the Internet has brought about.
With search engines at our fingertips, anyone can research any topic of interest, often finding that what the daily
newspaper or news magazine had to say about it is replete with omissions of critical facts or the deliberate
dissemination of falsehoods.
Newspapers
Defend Their Crony Capitalism: Outdated Monopoly on Public Notices. The newspaper industry has
successfully lobbied for the past 10 years to preserve their archaic monopoly over the printing of public
notices. They use deceptive technical arguments to sway conservative Republican legislators in Arizona
and other states. It is well overdue to stop this corporate welfare that keeps liberal newspapers
artificially alive longer, and move public notices to the internet where people might actually see them.
New
Study Predicts the Death of Newspapers in Five Years. A new report to be issued in January by
the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future predicts that most newspapers will be dead in five years.
The Center's director, Jeffrey I. Cole, had this to say about the future of newspapers: "Circulation
of print newspapers continues to plummet, and we believe that the only print newspapers that will survive will
be at the extremes of the medium — the largest and the smallest," said Cole.
9 Things to Say Goodbye To:
[#3] The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't
subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man.
As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it.
CNN
to Lay off 50 Staffers; Photojournalists Lose Out to Smartphones, Flip Cams. After a three-year
analysis of the company's work processes CNN began to issue layoff notices yesterday to staffers in Atlanta,
New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Miami. The network is eliminating about 50 positions, from
photographers to news editors to those employed at the CNN Library in New York, which is closing and being
consolidated with one in Atlanta.
CNN babes fail. If you are offended by male
(and lesbian) chauvinism, kindly read one of the 1 million other political blogs. The difference between CNN and
Fox News is that the Fox News babes are blond and the CNN babes are brunette. That and the women on Fox News get the
ratings. The women on CNN get awards. I bring this up because another CNN babe is about to bite the dust.
OBrien's
Unpopularity Destroys Morning Ratings for CNN. Executives at CNN must be in shock at the catatrophic implosion
of their morning lineup, as Starting Point With Soledad O'Brien recorded the cable network's lowest ratings for that
time slot in more than a decade. Fewer than 100,000 adults 25-54 tuned in to O'Brien's program on an average day,
according to the latest quarterly Nielsen numbers.
5
Long-Term Trends Working Against The Democratic Party. At one point, the Left had an almost total
lock on the media. People watched one of the big three liberal networks, they read a liberal newspaper,
and they had few other options to find out what was going on in the world. That has changed dramatically
in the last few decades. The big three networks? They've lost 55.5% of their audience since 1980.
Liberal newspapers? They're dinosaurs that are slowly but surely sliding towards extinction in their current
form. Staffs are being laid off across the country and The New York Times, which is the most
prestigious paper in America, is 1.1 billion dollars in debt and fading.
Could robots
replace journalists? Journalists today have more to worry about than just getting that elusive
scoop, with the arrival of new software that creates articles without the need for humans.
The Editor says...
It's a sad day for your profession when someone suggests that you can all be replaced by automation.
I speak from experience.
Gannett
laying off 700 more workers amid ad slump. The nation's largest newspaper publisher is laying off
another 700 employees to cope with an unrelenting advertising slump.
Is the internet going to be the death of television?
Nielsen, who track US television viewing habits, have reported a drop in television ownership -- albeit from
98.9% to 96.7%. DVD sales are falling, while Netflix recently overtook cable operator Comcast to
become the biggest subscription video service in North America.
Journalism Tops
List of Most Useless Degrees. Journalism schools are trying to adapt to survive. But in a
world where traditional journalism is dying, students seeking a j-school degree are doing so at their own risk.
Report:
Journalism Degrees Are Probably Just As Useless As You Expected. Getting into a good university,
as anyone will tell you, is hard work. Harder still is mustering up the confidence that your (often all
too pricey) education will be put to good use, so that one does not find oneself spending an entire semester
reading The Canterbury Tales in its original middle English for nothing. It's good to know ahead of time,
then, that your degree has some sort of worth, that it will eventually lead to a well-paying job rife with
opportunities for advancement. Which is exactly why I will dissuade my hypothetical children from
majoring in journalism...
Big Media
Suicide Compact. Is there a profit-making business — other than TV networks and
The New York Times — that so disrespects its audience it works overtime to offend them?
What other business metaphorically flips the bird to those who don't subscribe to their social, cultural
and political worldview? That is precisely what big media does to a large number of potential
viewers and subscribers.
The Media and
the Republicans. The American mainstream media, once the most dominant news gathering
entity in the world, has lost its credibility and is in the process of losing its influence. Yet
the Republicans and some conservative intelligentsia in Washington D.C. still foolishly curry the media's
favor, cower in fear of their by-gone power and do not understand their motives and mindless acquiescence to
group-think mentality. Since 1990 total newspaper circulation has dropped by 17.3 million readers
(28%). The three network news broadcasts have suffered a similar fate. Since 1991 they have lost
12.6 million viewers (34%). The various mainstream news magazines such a Time and Newsweek are a
mere skeleton of their former selves.
Television's
Latchkey Journalism. TV news' phony objectivity, once personified by avuncular Walter Cronkite, has
mutated into the "bratcast." When CBS' Cronkite for decades told millions of viewers each day "that's the way it
was," Americans were expected to take it as gospel truth from the lips of a grandfatherly wise man. In the
Internet age, with its endless flavors of news reporting, a Cronkite is as obsolete as an 8-track tape player.
U.S.
Consumers Ditching Cable TV In Droves. U.S. cable TV operators lost 741,000 basic video customers
in the third quarter, research firm SNL Kagan reported Wednesday [11/17/2010]. That's the single largest quarterly drop
for cable since SNL Kagan began compiling data for the segment in 1980. Cable's share of the multichannel
pay television market continues to slide, dipping to 60.3% from 62.9% in Q3 2009.
Morning Show
Retreat: Almost half a million fewer women tuned into the big three morning shows this season
compared to last. And though that number may not be devastating to ABC, CBS, and NBC just yet, the
10 percent drop off is making networks and their advertisers (a good portion of whom have their
revenues tied up in moms' purse strings) nervous.
TV media finally feeling
print media's pain. What happened this week at KPIX, where 15 of about 250 station employees were
laid off, is both an old and a new story. Old in that it — and other CBS-owned and -operated
stations from Chicago to Dallas — weren't making enough profit, so salaries were shed. And new
in that local TV stations are finally feeling the impact of the changing ways people consume media.
CBS Moves Ahead With
Layoffs in News. News operations at CBS stations in several cities started a series of job cuts
this week even as the CBS News network moved ahead with plans to lay off about 1 percent of its nearly
1,200 employees. Over the last several days, layoffs were ordered at local stations that CBS owns,
including ones in New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Dana McClintock, a spokesman for CBS,
said the actions at the network and the local stations were not related.
Dead Air: Why CBS should shutter its news division.
To judge by the ads, the most loyal adherents to CBS' quasi-journalistic programming are impotent and
incontinent. It so happens that they share these afflictions with the network's actual news division.
… Most weeks, the perfectly decent Bob Schieffer, who will retire after the 2009 inauguration, sees
Face the Nation to a finish as the third-rated Sunday show. And the only thing worse than the
Nielsen numbers is the product.
A Low-Water
Mark for Broadcast TV Viewing. TV viewers must have taken to the beach: It was the least-watched
week in recorded history for the four biggest broadcast networks.
Who Really Needs a
Journalism Degree? There are rumblings that journalism schools, as we have known them, are on
the decline in America. It's assumed that this is tied to the decline in job opportunities in newsrooms
and magazines as those industries die an agonizingly slow and painful death. In some corners the decline
of the J-schools is being lamented almost as if it is the death of truth, itself.
The
Sorry State of Journalism: Journalism today is broken. Blame media bias, the internet, reader
apathy ... what have you. Ultimately, the public wants something different.
It's
not News Unless it's Reported by a Mainstream Journalist. The Leftist "Media Matters" is scandalized
because Fox News reported an anti-Greenie story that was originally put on the net via a blog rather than by one
of the mainstream news organizations. … They couldn't question the truth of the story — because
it is true. The only thing to criticize that they could find was who reported the event.
The
Prevalence Of Media Bias: In 1985, in another Gallup question, 55% said news organizations
usually get their facts straight. But only 36% gave that response the last time Gallup asked about
it. Given these findings, it's hardly surprising that Americans are watching less network news and
reading fewer newspapers. In 1995, more than 60% told Gallup they watched network nightly news every
night; that number has dropped, precipitously, to 35%.
Dying For An A. Why the
decline of the establishment media? The Internet, of course, lets us all choose from a countless array of news
sources, couched in whatever political philosophy each of us fancies. Today, why bother buying a paper? ... But
we're also now all finally liberated from what the media have been for so long: an echo chamber for the
mind-set of big government, high taxes, subpar national defense and cultural radicalism.
So Much More Than Just the New York Times.
Over the weekend NBC offered up their latest versions of Tim Russert's Meet the Press and the Chris Matthews
Show — the latter being political television's answer to Jerry Springer. In them we were
treated to two more glittering examples of all that is wrong with the Jurassic Press.
More Americans
turning to Web for news. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional
journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news,
according to a new survey. … Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey
said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent
just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent
turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.
Major Journalism Scandal at
Sacramento Paper. As more comes to light about Diane Griego Erwin, the former
Sacramento Bee columnist, the more revealing and instructive the story becomes. It is a story we
mentioned in a recent Media Monitor, but
much more has come to light. In one sense, it is another validation for the New Media, specifically
the blogs; and for another, it shines a light on problems related to diversity in the newsrooms, when
diversity strictly refers to skin color.
Liberal
reporters, an arrogant bunch. The declining state of the American newspaper apparently warms
a lot of hearts. Polls tell us about the general public's disrelish for Congress. Equally disrelished
are journalists and newspapers. Frankly, I sympathize. The American journalist is an odd creature.
Most are as arrogant and provincial as the average American college professor. Curiously, many journalists
even look like university professors, especially journalists from the major liberal newspapers.
The News Business Is in
Decline. The evidence is the current emphasis on individual crime stories
and stories about the entertainment industry. … Today's newsroom resembles a Prudential
Insurance office. Smoking is forbidden, and there is only the faint clatter of
computer-keyboard keys. I knew the business was doomed when they put a salad bar
in the lunchroom. Today's journalists tend to be salad-eaters and joggers, and
those who smoke don't smoke tobacco.
Tony Snow and the
deteriorating media: President Bush's new White House Press Secretary is all the rage. But
unfortunately, Tony Snow's appointment will only feed the media's craving for personal recognition and
attention. One of the major problems with the media today is too much focus on the "personality"
delivering the news, while any actual substance of the news takes second stage.
The
Collapse of Big Media: Starting Over. They've seen their audiences
shrink, they've had to worry about vigorous new competitors, and they've suffered
more than a few self-inflicted wounds — scandals of their own making. They
know that more and more people have lost confidence in what they do. To many
Americans, today's newspaper is irrelevant, and network news is as compelling as
whatever is being offered over on the Home Shopping Network. Maybe less.
Von Hoffman: TV Media
Biased and Inept. "Left, right and center, people by the tens of millions have stopped
watching network news," columnist Nicholas von Hoffman concludes. "And that may be a healthy
thing if it betokens skepticism, disbelief and an effort to find out for one's self."
Television
Losing Ground to the Internet as a Main Source of News. Television remains the main source of
national and international news for most Americans, but it is steadily losing its lead over the Internet,
according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted Dec. 1-5. The trend toward the Internet is
particularly marked among 18-to-29 year-olds who now favor it over television to learn what's going on in
the country and the world. Sixty-six percent of those surveyed said they get their dose of news from
television compared to 41 percent who said they count on the Internet.
To Be
Well-Informed You Must Go Online. [Scroll down] But it's the 2008 presidential campaign
that will go down in history as the most blatant corruption of the Fourth Estate, with most of the mainstream
media losing all perspective and going gaga over candidate Barack Obama. While some of their fervor has
dimmed because of the catastrophic state of the economy, there are still loyalist press hounds defending this
administration. ... The reason the Democrats are in trouble is that many voters are ignoring the status quo
sources with the liberal stamp of approval and getting their news straight from the World Wide Web.
The Fading Fourth Estate. This is
National Newspaper Week, but there's not a lot of celebrating going on for this fading industry. In fact,
National Newspaper Week might soon be a thing of the past. Newspapers were once called the "Fourth Estate",
meaning they were like a fourth branch of government. As the fourth branch, newspapers were expected to be
independent of the other government branches. Hence newspaper readers would have an autonomous source that
impartially evaluated the regular branches of government. Sadly, that is no longer the case. If it
ever was.
The
Media Loses Readers and Viewers to its Own Radicalism. Whether it's Newsweek being sold to the
husband of a Democratic congresswoman for a dollar, or ABC deciding to turn This Week into a BBC program by
turning over to Christiane Amanpour, last week the dying media itself provided us with two examples of why it's
dying. By choosing radicalism over readers, the media continues narrowing its own readership and
viewership, pursuing ideological purity, not only over integrity, but even over its own profits and future
viability.
A
Farewell to the MSM. It's hard to tell whose ratings are falling faster — those
of the Cold-Hearted Social Engineer in the White House, or the activist old media that adore him so (oh,
just for the record, the Democrat Congress is actually at the bottom in this survey.) Gallup just
completed its annual Confidence in Institutions survey and things do not look good for the news media.
A Dying Media Writes its Own Obituary.
Most people think of the news media differently than the participants in it think of themselves. While
most people think that the job of newspapers, news radio stations and television newscasts is to report on
events, those on the other end of the wire, the printing press and the cable, think that their job is
not to report, but to advocate.
Media
Elites Are Living in Their Own Dying World. On Sunday, CBS' Bob Schieffer admitted that he was on
vacation the week before he interviewed Attorney General Eric Holder on "Face the Nation," and thus he had not
heard the story of the Justice Department dropping the Black Panther voter intimidation case. Bernie
Goldberg believes him — and noted that Schieffer is simply living in the world of the New York
Times, like other media elites.
Newspapers still needed,
but going fast. Lately, many people have asked me about the fate of the American newspaper in an era
when circulation, advertising and staff size are all sharply down. I've told them what editors have told
me: The next 18 to 24 months may well see the first major U.S. city without a daily paper.
Newspaper death
spiral accelerates some more. The decline in advertising revenues at the NYT accelerates again,
and now the largest newspaper in New Jersey, the Star-Ledger of Newark, is threatening to shut down next
January, if its employees do not voluntarily accept buyouts and unions do not agree to concessions.
Tribune
Company Loses $121 Million. The Tribune Company, owner of newspapers including The Los Angeles
Times and The Chicago Tribune, along with the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, said Monday that it lost
$121.6 million in the third quarter as newspaper advertising revenue fell.
A Scary Look at the Future of
Media. Convention time just ended for journalists, and they are on edge about the future.
Not the political conventions — the annual Society of Professional Journalists event. With ad dollars
shrinking and job losses mounting, the future they are most concerned with is their own. Media outlets
are changing to survive, and those changes could move journalism even further to the left.
Steep
Decline at 'NYT' While 'WSJ' Gains. The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday.
Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to
1,077,256. … At The Washington Post, daily circulation decreased 3.5% to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3% to
890,163. Meanwhile, daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal grew a fraction of a percent, up 0.3% to
2,069,463 copies.
The Worst of Times.
The New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days. The word from inside is that
approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees
have gotten on board. That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass
firing of journalists in its 156-year history.
S&P slashes New York Times rating
to junk. Standard & Poor's on Thursday [10/23/2008] slashed its ratings on the New York Times
Co into junk territory and cited concerns about the newspaper publisher's revenue outlook, after it posted a
third-quarter loss.
It's Official: NYT is Junk. Friday, the New
York Times endorsed Barack Obama for President as "the right choice" to follow the "battered, drifting and failed
leadership" of George W. Bush. That wasn't a surprise. The real news came from another part of
town: Yesterday [10/27/2008], Standard & Poors slashed the New York Times rating on its $1 billion debt
to "junk" status. Coincidence, or cause and effect?
Steep
Decline at 'NYT' While 'WSJ' Gains. The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday.
Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to
1,077,256. … At The Washington Post, daily circulation decreased 3.5% to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3% to
890,163. Meanwhile, daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal grew a fraction of a percent, up 0.3% to
2,069,463 copies.
Pressed for Cash. The
Minneapolis Star Tribune, reeling under a heavy debt load and plummeting advertising sales, is on the brink of bankruptcy,
The Post has learned. One of the nation's top dailies, "The Strib," as it is known to readers in the Twin Cities,
recently hired the Wall Street powerhouse Blackstone Group to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet its
debt obligations, according to people familiar with the company.
Newspapers likely to be free
in the future: survey. Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to
become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors
showed on Tuesday [5/6/2008]. The report, conducted by Zogby International for the World Editors Forum
and Reuters, revealed that newspaper editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but
believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.
Star-Ledger cuts newsroom staff by
nearly half. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., will reduce its newsroom staff by nearly half through
voluntary buyouts as New Jersey's largest newspaper seeks to return to profitability.
Media
Credibility Plummets, 'Most Trusted' CNN Believed by Just 30%. "Over the last 10 years,"
the just-released biennial news consumption survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
determined, "virtually every news organization or program has seen its credibility marks decline" and "Democrats
continue to give most news organizations much higher credibility ratings than do Republicans."
Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional
Sources. On any given day, 57% of Americans watch news on TV, a rate that has remained largely
stable over the past 10 years (59% in 1998). By comparison, the share that reads a newspaper
yesterday stands at 34%, down six points in just the past two years and down 14 points from 48% a decade
ago. Radio news is suffering comparable losses.
Pressed for Cash. The
Minneapolis Star Tribune, reeling under a heavy debt load and plummeting advertising sales, is on the brink of bankruptcy,
The Post has learned. One of the nation's top dailies, "The Strib," as it is known to readers in the Twin Cities,
recently hired the Wall Street powerhouse Blackstone Group to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet its
debt obligations, according to people familiar with the company.
Gannett
to cut 1,000 newspaper jobs: memo. Gannett Co Inc plans to eliminate 1,000 positions from
its local newspapers around the U.S. because of declining advertising and circulation revenue, and may cut
more if those conditions persist.
Newspapers likely to be free
in the future: survey. Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to
become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors
showed on Tuesday [5/6/2008]. The report, conducted by Zogby International for the World Editors Forum
and Reuters, revealed that newspaper editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but
believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.
Now the bad
news. CNN's 11 p.m. show NewsNight summed up the theme: "Killer hurricanes, massive
earthquakes, monstrous fires: Are these unpredictable acts of nature signs the end of days
is near?" it asked on October 12. … "The end" may not be near, but the end of
television news ought to be, if such vague scare tactics are all it has left to offer. Unfortunately,
even though viewership is going down — deservedly so — the old mainstream liberal
media remains influential.
Katie Couric — Death throes of a
media dinosaur. It was recently announced that CBS will be losing millions on the Evening News
and that the lost revenue will be made up by draining dough from other parts of its vast antediluvian
broadcasting swamp. … But as costs balloon and viewers continue to disappear, how long can the network
continue to pour increasing amounts of money and all that jazz into a support network for a mashed potato
soft non-journalist like Ms. Couric?
Paradigms Lost.
[Katie] Couric disdains putting unqualified people in important jobs. So let's turn to the new paradigm
that allows us to question the credibility of mainstream journalists. When, exactly, did Katie Couric begin
to dance on the national mainstream media scene and what qualified her to do so?
Can CBS Be Saved? People abandoned
network news because network news abandoned them. Sure, the networks can try gimmicks to lure viewers
back — such as solo female anchors, letting viewers vote for the stories they want to see, and
hiring heartthrobs as national correspondents. But that's all just window-dressing.
Papers
Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue. For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse.
This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising
serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.
Time Embraces a
Timeless Idea. Time magazine, the superannuated newsweekly, seems to reinvent itself every few
years with slackening energy, in one vain attempt after another to postpone its inevitable, rapidly approaching,
and much-anticipated demise. Its most recent incarnation has largely dispensed with the snoozy business
of gathering and conveying fresh information in favor of political advocacy.
Ideal of the Scoop. Following
are excerpts of remarks by the Editor of the Sun, Seth Lipsky, to the newspaper's staff: It is my duty
to report today that Ira Stoll and I and our partners have concluded that the Sun will cease publication.
Our last number will be the issue dated September 30, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I want you to
know that Ira and I, and our partners, explored every possible way to avoid having to cease publication.
The Late, Great New York Sun.
More than any other daily newspaper of our time, the Sun helped its readers understand that in standing
up for the defense of Israel, they were also standing up for the defense of America.
International
Herald Tribune Website Joins Dinosaurs. The International Herald Tribune website —
sister site of NYTimes.com — will soon shut down, citing "growth" opportunities.
Media Meltdown.
The public has already turned on big media, but big media is too into denial to notice. People are no
longer buying their product; newsrooms are being downsized. "Journalists" are now left to wonder what
happened to their once-great profession, as they pick up their final paychecks.
The Limits Of The Tanning Bed Media. When
the MSM moans about the gallons of red ink it's spilled since 2001, it needs to ask itself if it's prepared to
actually report the news, in a fashion that interests readers, or if it exists as a non-profit ideological
support system.
E.W. Scripps
cuts 400 newspaper jobs. Media company E.W. Scripps Co. said Friday [11/7/2008] it is laying off
around 400 employees at its newspapers in a restructuring expected to save about $15 million a year, as
it swung to a third-quarter loss in a weak advertising market.
The Newspaper Belongs
in the Trash. It is time to start giving reputable blogs the status historically given
newspapers, because they are gradually becoming the newspapers of the future. Just like Fox News and
talk radio destroyed the hegemony of the major TV news networks, blogs are now taking down the left's last
media bastion, print media.
Newspapers
Censor Their Way to Oblivion. This campaign season The Kansas City Star passed on a
parcel of the nation's most eye-popping stories. Incredibly, at least five of those stories flared up
in the Star's home state, Missouri. As the reader might guess, all five stories reflected unfavorably
on Democratic candidates. This is nothing new. What is new is that by censoring such stories the
Star has continued to show its indifference to the majority of its potential customers even as it
struggles to stay afloat.
PC
Magazine dropping print for online. PC Magazine, which has documented the explosive growth of
the personal computer since 1982, announced on Wednesday [11/19/2008] that it was dropping its print edition
next year and going online only. PC Magazine publisher Ziff Davis Media, which recently exited
Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said in a statement that the final edition of the iconic magazine would be
the January 2009 issue.
Sources
say the Associated Press will cut 10 percent of its jobs in 2009. The Associated Press plans to cut
up to 10 percent of its workforce in 2009, according to sources at the news service, as it copes with tough
financial times and ailing member newspapers.
Newsday
cutting 100 jobs, raising newsstand prices. Newsday announced plans Friday [12/5/2008] to cut 100 jobs,
or about 5 percent of its workforce, and raise newsstand prices for the weekday and Sunday editions as the newspaper
grapples with the worsening economy.
As newspapers struggle, change
brings pain. We'll remember it as Terrible Tuesday: The day last week this newspaper cut 25 employee
positions. That followed layoffs of 10 employees in August and two longtime managers in September.
Co-workers huddled, whispering, worrying, crying. ... Yes, this is a bad year for the economy and all industries.
But it's the worst year ever for newspapers.
Journalists Out of Work? Resurrect Leftwing Federal Writers
Project. Mark Pinsky, writing for the New Republic, has an idea of what to do with all the
journalists currently being laid off by the dying newspapers around the country: put them on the
public payroll by hiring them for a resurrected Federal Writers Project. This was the New Deal
project which provided funding for works which were primarily of a leftwing nature. And any current
version of this government program is likely to have the same political ideology as its predecessor.
Who will mourn
local newspapers? They say that journalists prefer bad news to good news. There is plenty
of that close to home. This is becoming a terrible week for the US newspaper industry.
Read all
about it! US newspapers fall prey to the internet and recession. The US newspaper industry is
in a full-blown crisis that has seen its business model dynamited by technology and its dwindling prospects
threatened by the financial meltdown, which has, in effect, forced advertising revenue off a cliff. In
the past week the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, has sought bankruptcy
protection from its creditors.
Three community newspapers close. Without so
much as a word of warning to their readers or employees, the Journal Register Co. on Thursday closed
three longtime community newspapers in Philadelphia. Staffers of the Olney Times, News Gleaner and
Northeast Breeze were told all three weekly publications were going to be shut down immediately during an impromptu
morning meeting, said Stuart London, the News Gleaner's sports editor. London said publisher J. Wesley Rowe Jr.
cited the struggling economy and an unsuccessful attempt by the Journal Register Co. to sell the papers when he delivered
the grim news.
No easy fix for US newspaper
industry. Circulation is dropping, print advertising revenue is falling and readers are going online to get
news for free, leaving the US newspaper industry awash in red ink and threatening some of the biggest names in journalism.
Bad times in newspaper
biz. December has been an ominous month for newspapers -- and all Americans should be concerned.
Gannett Co., the largest newspaper chain in the United States, laid off about 2,000 workers, or 10 percent
of its work force. The E.W. Scripps chain announced that the Denver-based Rocky Mountain News was
up for sale. If no buyer steps forward in the next four to six weeks, the paper, which is expected to
lose $15 million this year, could be closed.
The Editor says...
High speed internet service is rendering many industries obsolete. If you work at a newspaper
or magazine publisher, you should look for another job. Similarly, if you work in a picture tube
factory, you should be worried, too, because most people are buying flat-screen TV's and computer
monitors. Also disappearing are camera film, VCR's, and coin-operated telephones. Nobody
makes slide rules, phonographs, typewriters, film projectors or cassette players any more. Small
town radio announcers have all but disappeared, largely due to the wide assortment of radio stations on
the internet. Telephone operators are fairly uncommon, even for directory assistance. Before
long I expect movie theaters to disappear, although television should persist for a few more decades,
especially if there are no newspapers.
Album Sales Plunge, Digital Downloads
Up. Music sales have continued to slump in 2008 as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed
to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs. ... Physical album sales fell 20 percent to 362.6 million
from 450.5 million, while digital album sales rose 32 percent to a record 65.8 million units.
Major Detroit Newspapers to Slash Workforce,
Home Deliveries. Two major newspapers will be making sweeping changes to the way news is read
in Detroit, following the path of smaller papers across the country that have slashed print circulation and
shifted focus online to stay in business.
What's killing newspapers is the same thing that
killed the slide rule. Hardly a day goes by, it seems, without some laid-off or bought-out
journalist writing a letter of condolence to himself and his profession. The Columbia Journalism Review
and the American Journalism Review have harbored these self-pitying fellows, as have newspaper columns and
blogs.
The
Last March Of The Dinosaurs: The Death Of Network News. The nets can't
change their DNA, and that DNA isn't meant for the world of new media. They are slow when
the new media is fast. … Worst of all, they lost their collective news judgment years ago,
and still haven't figured out how to get it back. They keep hiring people from inside
the junior varsity bubble of the Ivies and J-schools and wonder why they can't break out of
their Manhattan-Beltway bubble.
New York
Times Nov. ad revenue drops 20.9 percent. The New York Times Co. said Wednesday
that advertising revenue dropped 20.9 percent in November from a year ago, as the financial crisis
prompted steep declines in classified and national ad spending.
Americans prefer
news from Web to newspapers. The Internet has surpassed newspapers as the main source for
national and international news for Americans, according to a new survey. Television, however, remains
the preferred medium for Americans, according to the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for
the People & the Press.
Print News Fading, Still Source of
Much News. CNet's Dan Farber took a look, not only at the popular news of how print media is dying a slow
death, but also what contribution to the news print journalists are still making.
Chicago's
newspapers facing troubled futures. A little more than a century ago, Chicago boasted 11 daily
English-language newspapers. ... Today, only two major dailies remain in this city of 3 million, and both
are in serious trouble from declining circulation, plummeting ad revenue and a new kind of competition that
threatens to make newsprint itself obsolete.
Chilly Numbers: Big
Newspaper Companies Endure November Rev Plunge. The newspaper business got another round of alarming (but not
terribly surprising) news over the last week, as three leading publishers revealed that ad revenues essentially fell off a
cliff in November As the New York Times Co., McClatchy and Media General are bellwethers for the industry overall,
their weak results suggest that newspapers will see a year-over-year fourth-quarter revenue decline in the double digits,
possibly exceeding 20%.
Mainstream
Media on Life Support. One-fifth of the world's nearly 7 billion people are now Web-capable — all
reporting, opining, interacting, twittering, digging and blogging. Bloggers, bless their hearts, are becoming the
new-old curmudgeons, thinking hard before writing, still insisting on complete sentences with more than 140 characters,
clinging to their gerunds, participles and semicolons. Many are camouflaged renegades from (or appendages to)
newspapers, not so much new breeds as Darwinian adapters to a new environment.
Hearst Looks to Sell
Or Close Seattle Paper. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will stop printing in 60 days unless the
newspaper's owner, the Hearst Corporation, can find a buyer by then, the company said on Friday.
Hearst said that if it could not find a buyer, it would either shut the paper entirely or make it an Internet-only
operation with a much-reduced staff.
Sun-Times
Media to close 12 newspapers. Chicago's Sun-Times Media Group Inc. said it would close 12 weekly
newspapers to cut expenses as advertising revenues have fallen. The 12 suburban newspapers scheduled to
close are part of 51 newspapers published by Pioneer Press, which the Sun-Times purchased in 1989.
Star
Tribune files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Star Tribune, saddled with high debt and a sharp
decline in print advertising, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition Thursday night. Minnesota's
largest newspaper will try to use bankruptcy to restructure its debt and lower its labor costs.
Scripps
not commenting on possible sale offers for Rocky. E.W. Scripps, owner of the Rocky Mountain News,
gave no word Friday on whether it had received any bids for the 149-year-old newspaper. But the company
said the next step won't be determined for several days at the earliest.
As
liberals take power, loony media Left behind. There is much irony in the fact that while liberals have won
power in Washington big time, left-wing media are collapsing all over the place. In the last couple of weeks, the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the mother of all liberal publications, The New York Times
[NYT], each has issued SOS announcements.
Times Co. Results Reflect
Ad Slump. Battered by a steep drop in newspaper advertising, The New York Times Company on
Wednesday [1/28/2009] reported fourth-quarter income of $27.6 million, or 19 cents a share, down
47.8 percent from a year earlier.
The Gray Lady turns a
deathly shade of pale. Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. has driven the proudest institution
in journalism to the doorstep of ruin, its corporate debt earning the humiliating label of "junk" from Moody's
Investors Services. And it wasn't just a slide over the line, the company tumbled three steps below
investment grade.
Newspapers fight perceptions
industry is dying. Several newspaper executives launched a public relations campaign on Monday [2/2/2009]
to counter what they call "gloom-and-doom" reports of the industry's demise. ... With the ads, commentary
pieces and a Web site, the industry is painting itself as a vital source of information and the best place
for advertisers to sell anything from grapes to a house — not the dinosaur often portrayed in
the media.
The Editor says...
The idea that newspapers are archaic and passé is not just a perception. Their declining
circulation and frequent layoffs speak for themselves. As you can see on this web page, newspapers
are constantly being sold off to the highest bidder, when large companies own other enterprises, like TV
stations. Why did this happen? Their average customer is getting older and older: School
kids spend all day in front of a computer or TV and they don't have the patience (or the ability) to spend
30 minutes with a daily paper. The kids (and most adults) know that the news in today's newspaper
was on the internet yesterday, and there's no demand for comic strips when television has several channels
of non-stop cartoons.
Slim Times For American Newspapers. Good!
American newspapers are dying. Let us celebrate, since in their extinction lies the only hope for
journalism ... In former Times (that's Times with a capital "T") it would have been unthinkable to say such a
thing. Newspapers were journalism and journalism was newspapers. But those days are long gone, and
it's not just because of talk radio and the internet. What we have in these Times are newspapers
engaging in the fraud of providing propaganda in the guise of journalism. Until these publications
disappear, journalism as we once knew it can't make a comeback.
Exclusive: Interview with Bernie
Goldberg. There are two reasons a lot of print media is on the verge of death. Literally,
on the verge of going under. One is technology. The internet is killing newspapers. It is
very difficult to make as much money putting out the New York Times online as it is putting out the paper
version. Because if Tiffany's buys a full page ad in the paper version they get a lot more money than
some ad they would buy online. So part of it has, is strictly technology, has nothing to do with
ideology. But the other part has a lot to do with ideology. I know real people, whose names I
could tell you, people I know who have said "I've stopped buying the New York Times." Why?
Because their editorial position has filtered, has leached into the news pages.
Journal Register Co. files for
Chapter 11. The Journal Register Co. filed Saturday for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors and
said slumping advertising revenue and circulation are to blame. In court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy
Court in Manhattan, company Chairman and Chief Executive James W. Hall said the recession had placed an even
greater burden on an already distressed industry.
Inquirer owner
files for bankruptcy protection. Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia
Daily News, and Philly.com, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday in a bid to restructure its $390 million in
debt load. The company, bought by a group of Philadelphia-area investors for $562 million in 2006, said the
voluntary Chapter 11 filing would not interrupt its daily operations.
Gannett slashes dividend
90 pct, saving $325M. Gannett Co. is slashing the dividend on its stock for the first time in its history as
the largest U.S. newspaper publisher finally succumbs to the financial squeeze that has triggered similar moves by its
cash-strapped brethren.
Rocky
Mountain News to close, publish final edition Friday. The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper
tomorrow. Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon
today [2/26/2009], ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper's future. "People are in grief,"
Editor John Temple said at a news conference later. Boehne told staffers that the Rocky was the victim of a
terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.
Rocky Mountain News closes down. The Rocky Mountain News, one of
America's most venerable newspapers, closed down yesterday [2/27/2009] amid a rising tide of grim forecasts for an
industry struggling with falling advertising revenues and changing media formats.
Newspaper
editors' convention scrapped. Following the cancellation of their annual convention for
only the second time in 86 years, the American Society of Newspaper Editors is considering
draconian measures to right their leaky vessels.
Cosmic
revenge is sweet. [Scroll down slowly] All these publications have been hurt by the
internet and by the recession, but these aren't the real source of their ills. In their bias, they fell
into mission confusion, and neutered the reasons for which they were made. ... Consumers aren't buying.
Liberal
Media Unemployment. Recently, a friend of mine who is a self-described liberal editor at a
major newspaper in the United States, explained to me one of the reasons why the major dailies started
their death spiral a number of years ago. "So many of my colleagues put their far-left ideology before
the bottom line and the financial health of the very newspaper that pays them. In still what is
basically a 50/50 nation politically, they have gleefully delivered insults onto the front porches of
conservatives and centrists and were thrilled when those from the center or center-right would call to
cancel their subscriptions to the paper."
The 10 Major Newspapers That Will
Either Fold or Go Digital Next. Over the last few weeks, the newspaper industry has entered a
new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy as did the Journal
Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, owned by Hearst,
will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close The San
Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts at the paper.
Some Cities Might Go
Paperless. As the economic downturn combines with a rapidly changing landscape on how
consumers get their news several cities may see their major newspaper disappear entirely.
The New York Times death
spiral continues. Bye, bye corporate jet! At long last, the beleaguered company is sacrificing top
management's plaything, the ultimate status symbol. A long overdue cost saving mechanism in a time when the
company's workers endure downsizing and cost reductions, even crowding themselves into smaller office space to
save money.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Ditches
Print. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has chronicled the news of the city since logs slid down its
steep streets to the harbor and miners caroused in its bars before heading north to Alaska's gold fields, will print
its final edition Tuesday [3/17/2009].
Newspapers' troubles escalate in recession.
It's the worst of times for the newspaper industry, and it's not the best time, either, for finding solutions amid a crisis
of downsizings, bankruptcies, and closings.
Conservatives and the
death of newspapers. As watchdogs, newspapers aren't the Dobermans they once were. Liberalism
increasingly dictates what they will and won't bark at, while shrinking staffs provide an ever-diminishing check on
communities and governments. There's no reason to believe others won't step up in time and perform the job
equally well or better once these monopolistic dinosaurs relinquish their hold on the local marketplace.
How
Will This Story End? Across the country famous nameplates are struggling, bankrupt or defunct.
Circulation has plummeted, and advertising along with it. Perhaps the foremost example is the Boston
Globe — owned by The New York Times (itself the recent recipient of a quarter billion-dollar
infusion from a Mexican financier). Circulating in what may be the nation's most literate community
and long a prestige newspaper property, the Globe has been on the market for several years with hardly a
suitor. To enhance the Globe's allure for potential buyers, The Times reportedly is throwing into
any prospective deal its 18-percent interest in the Boston Red Sox.
Newspapers keep
cutting costs, print editions. The pall looming over U.S. newspapers grew even darker Monday as
Gannett Co. informed most of its employees that they will have to take another week of unpaid leave this spring,
while a Michigan daily unveiled plans to close its print edition after 174 years.
Hearst's
Houston Chronicle cutting 12 pct of staff. The Houston Chronicle is laying off about
12 percent of its work force. In a story posted Tuesday on the Chronicle's Web site, Publisher
Jack Sweeney blamed the cuts on the troubles of the newspaper industry, though he noted that all kinds of
companies are being forced to slash expenses.
Dangerous Paper Route.
In an end around to a newspaper industry bailout, Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin, a Democrat, would like to begin his
first paper route by delivering newspapers from non-profit organizations to the American public. Today [3/24/2009], Cardin
introduced the Newspaper Stabilization Act that would allow newspaper organizations to convert from corporation to
non-profit status.
Not Dead Yet.
The arrival of the Internet threatens all previous media, as the avalanche of choice in information and entertainment
assails all franchises and dilutes everyone's market share, and the cost is spread over all services, including
e-mails. The newspaper, as the most technically traditional, dependent on a conversion and manufacturing
process andvulnerable of the old media.
Sun-Times Files For
Bankruptcy. This was a dark day at the Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times Media Group,
owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and numerous suburban newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Friday morning [3/27/2009], just a few months after rival newspaper titan Tribune Company did the same
thing. It's been only two days since the price of the Sun-Times went from 50 to 75 cents,
but it's clear the newspaper needs every quarter it can get.
Disappearing
Daily Newspapers. As someone who began his career in journalism, working for weeklies, moving
on to a daily, and later seeing my by-line on occasion in the New York Times, I have a nostalgic
fondness for newsprint. I actually start my day reading my local daily, albeit mostly checking the
obituary pages — it's an age thing — and having a freshly brewed cup of coffee.
Then, in order to really know what is going on in the nation and the world, I surf the Net for an
hour, visiting various news and opinion websites ... .
Life
After Newspapers. Few industries in this country have been as coddled as newspapers. The government
doesn't actually write them checks, as it does to farmers and now to banks, insurance companies and automobile
manufacturers. But politicians routinely pay court to local newspapers the way other industries pay
court to politicians.
Media Insiders Say Internet Hurts Journalism.
In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, nearly two-thirds say the Internet is hurting journalism more
than it is helping. The poll, conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal, asked 43 media insiders whether, on
balance, journalism has been helped more or hurt more by the rise of news consumption online. Sixty-five percent said
journalism has been hurt more, while 34 percent said it has been helped more.
A world without
newspapers? Heaven forbid... Of course, you don't have to look back too many years to a time
when there were no newspapers. Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440, they just
couldn't exist. It is instructive therefore to look at what the world was like before Gutenberg. Didn't
they have a name for the period before the 1400s? Oh yes, the Dark Ages, or more politely, the
medieval era.
Times owner bleeds red ink, cites Boston Globe.
The New York Times Co. reported a quarterly loss yesterday, blaming a 27 percent drop in advertising revenue and poor
performance at The Boston Globe, which might close this year.
Red ink mounts at the NYT.
The New York Times Company announced today [4/21/2009] a first-quarter 2009 operating loss of $61.6 million compared with
operating profit of $6.2 million in the first quarter of 2008.
The
New York Times and its money are easily parted. According to Businessinsider.com, the
$250 million loan the New York Times took from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim isn't much different
than a payday loan you'd get from the corner cheque-casher.
Online news fees: financial
salvation or suicide? The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is a rarity among large U.S. newspapers — it's
selling more weekday copies than a decade ago. In Idaho, the Post Register's circulation has remained stable,
while many other print publications have lost readers to the Internet. How can this be? The executives
behind the Arkansas and Idaho newspapers believe it's because they've been giving free access to their Web sites
only to people who subscribe to the printed edition.
Liberal Media on Life Support. [Scroll down slowly] Ten years
ago, this might never have surfaced, as the media giants, in their lockdown control of the presses and airwaves, seemed
to have things their own way. Then the Internet emerged as a free and alternative center of power, a 'press' that
looked at the press with the critical eye that the press turned on others, and an age of exposure began. Skeptics
took aim at the press and its doings. Blogs rose that put the Times under their microscope. Powerline and Hugh
Hewitt took on local papers, which are now in some trouble. Instapundit pointed out double standards when and
where they occurred.
Media Driving
Customers Away. Newspaper circulation is down. Papers have shut down this year in Seattle
and Denver. The New York Times is threatening to close its sister paper the Boston Globe unless labor
unions make major concessions. Network news viewership is plunging too. ... A liberal party line is
about all the MSM still has in stock. Small wonder it's going out of business and cannot find many
buyers, even at bargain basement prices.
Broadcasters
hurt by economy and changes in the way we consume news. When KSDK lead anchor Deanne Lane disappeared from the
airwaves in mid-April, it may have demonstrated the new reality facing local TV and radio broadcasters across the nation.
Lane's departure came near the end of her contract, amid rumors that she was being asked to take a significant pay cut.
Neither Lane nor the station have discussed her exit, which came with little fanfare.
Gannett cutting
1,400 jobs at local papers. USA Today owner Gannett Co., the biggest newspaper chain in the
United States, announced plans on Wednesday to cut some 1,400 jobs at its local newspapers.
Obama:
We Need To Bail Out Newspapers Or Blogs Will Run The World. Obama yesterday [9/20/2009] expressed concern at
the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout, because otherwise, blogs will
take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports.
No
government bailout for newspapers. Those immortal words — "I'm from the government
and I'm here to help you" — are now being spoken to newspaper owners and their employees, all of
whom are desperate to survive in the Internet Age. The main voice behind the words is Sen. Ben Cardin,
D-Md., author of proposed legislation allowing newspaper owners to restructure their properties as 501c(3)
education foundations. The idea is to lure rich donors who will bail out "quality newspapers" if the
government will make doing so tax deductible. What will actually happen is newspapers will become
government toadies.
New York
Times to cut 100 newsroom jobs. The New York Times Co. plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs, about eight percent
of the total, by the end of the year, the newspaper reported Monday [10/19/2009].
Warren
Buffett: 'Newspapers Have Got a Terrible Future'. Warren Buffett, the second richest man in
the world and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, doesn't have much faith in the future of print media.
The Media Death
Spiral. The circulation figures for the top 25 dailies in the US are out, and they're
horrifying. The median decline is well into the teens; only the Wall Street Journal gained (very
slightly). I think we're witnessing the end of the newspaper business, full stop, not the end of
the newspaper business as we know it. The economics just aren't there.
Why Newsweek is the Punch Line.
Newsweek lost almost $20 million in the first quarter of this year; in response, [editor Jon] Meacham
said that he would attempt to cut readership in order to increase profits. His plan involved "discouraging
renewals," ostensibly by creating a magazine so far to the left that no rational human being could take it seriously,
and "targeting a more highbrow audience" (the term "highbrow" being used in the loosest possible sense).
Journalism's
slow, sad death. Like the nearby Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the
Newseum — Washington's museum dedicated to journalism — displays dinosaurs.
On a long wall near the entrance, the front pages of newspapers from around the country are electronically
posted each morning — the artifacts of a declining industry.
Washington
Times firing 370 employees, Miami Herald 24. The Washington Times will lay off 370 employees,
reportedly around 40 percent of its workforce, as part of a major overhaul that will also see the paper
distributed for free in some places. In a statement, the Times' president and publisher, Jonathan Slevin,
said the cuts were part of a strategy to transform the paper into a 21st century media company.
The
Great Newspaper Bailout. The pattern repeats itself — an industry in chaos,
companies going bankrupt, thousands of workers losing jobs. It's time for government intervention.
That's been the Obama administration's model for Wall Street, insurance giant AIG and the auto industry.
Now it could be the same for the American media. Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC
are all looking at ways to "help" journalism.
Journalism and
Freedom. The old business model based mainly on advertising is dead. Let's face it: A
business model that relies primarily on online advertising cannot sustain newspapers over the long term. The
reason is simple arithmetic. Though online advertising is increasing, that increase is only a fraction of
what is being lost with print advertising. That's not going to change, even in a boom.
Soak The Rich, Save The
Media! [Scroll down] The glory days of journalism began to wane not for economic
reasons but for political ones. Journalists started reporting the news with an agenda and
abandoning long-held ethical standards like objectivity and fairness. ... The "tipping point in the
industry" came not in the 1980s, as [Robert] Niles believes, but in the 1990s, when Fox News launched and
started reporting the news that liberal journalists had ignored, suppressed or spun for years.
Toward
the End, Editor and Publisher Lurched Left. With the demise of the Editor and Publisher
this week, many media commentators are nostalgic for the hard-nosed trade journalism the newspaper
industry publication often engaged in. E&P's strength was always in its core mission of reporting
news industry trends. In its latter years, like a number of other outlets, it began to stray
off-course into garden-variety, hypocritical leftist media criticism.
Did the
Supreme Court Just Save Newspapers? The Supreme Court's decision Thursday [1/21/2010] striking
down limits on campaign spending by corporations, which was split along ideological lines, will change the
political and media landscape in profound ways that transcend ideology. Unless Chuck Schumer and others
find a way to legislate around this, an explosion of advertising and other instruments of persuasion will
soon erupt from every corner.
Obviously the fair market value is near zero.
After
Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site. In late October, Newsday, the
Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay
wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a
pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest.
The Internet and
the Agora: The blogosphere seems to be flushing the mainstream downstream. The
blowback is venomous and not a pretty sight. Media stars, especially, are fighting a vicious
rearguard action against the inevitable. The rise of the internet and the fall of traditional
journalism are giving hyperbole a new lease on life. ... The mainstream monopoly is over. It is
no longer possible for a few elites with a narrow ideology to control information or analysis, the
building blocks of belief.
Do Liberal
Editors Read Their Papers? Circulation for the New York Times is way down. Some
people are seriously speculating that the days of America's great newspapers are over. They
may be replaced by Kindle, or iPad, or some other newer technology. This is not a new problem.
The bygone great age of newspapers has been fading from memory as they become more distanced from the
real life of our people.
US
newspaper circulation drops 8.74 percent. Circulation figures for US newspapers released Monday [4/26/2010]
provided another dose of bad news for an industry that has seen a wave of bankruptcies, closures and cutbacks
in newsrooms across the country.
Good Riddance to Newsweek. It is
extremely doubtful that The Washington Post will find a buyer for Newsweek magazine and it would not surprise
me if Time magazine disappears as well. Both are an offense to anything that passes for journalistic
ethics or practices and have been for far too long.
Big
Three Nets' Evening News Dives Deepen. Five weeks ago (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog),
the Big Three Networks' combined evening news audiences dropped to below 20 million — an audience
about 5% less than what Matt Drudge in the summer of 2006 headlined as "TV's Lowest Week." ... Just 10 years
ago, the nets' evening news audience was about 12 million larger in a country with a population that was
about 9% smaller.
Newsweek: The
Canary In The Liberal Coal Mine. The men and women who produce this magazine, in existence since
1933, doubtless have families to feed, kids to educate, lives to live. We wish them well. But the
failure of Newsweek is a significant moment in American culture that should not go unnoticed. It is the
journalistic equivalent of the canary, a sign that that the coal mine that is liberal beliefs, assumptions,
and ways of looking at the world is about to explode.
An Ode to Citizen
Journalists. Why are newspapers published? ... During my thirty years in journalism, I've interviewed
dozens of candidates who were hoping to be hired as a reporter or editor. I asked each one: Why are
newspapers published? In thirty years, no recent graduate of a journalism school has known the answer.
U.S. News Kisses Ink
Goodbye. Facing an increasing tough advertising climate U.S. News and World Report announced
this week that it will cease publishing a print magazine and switch to an all digital format.
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