I’m very distressed to read this. Newspapers are the life blood of a community. Television news has also been in decline, but television doesn’t become the record for the community, as TV is more transient, and not considered a searchable news resource. People can’t go to a TV station and search archives, for example. The Enterprise Record recently had to lay off staff, not so much for circulation decline, which has been flat, but for declining advertising revenue.
From the American Thinker:
Newspaper industry collapse intensifying
Thomas Lifson
The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) has released the latest circulation numbers for big city dailies, and the news is almost uniformly bad for big newspaper publishers. The sole bright spot continues to be the New York Post, whose weekday circulation is up an impressive 7.6% to 724,748 in the six month period. The Post has a winning combination of a low cover prices and lively non-liberal writing. Oddly enough, no other papers seem to copying the successful tactics, something which ought to concern shareholders of the collapsing businesses.
Some key newspapers are in real trouble:
The Dallas Morning News hemorrhaged 14.2% of daily circ to 411,919.
The San Diego Union-Tribune slipped 6.5% to 296,331
The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, daily circ declined 4.9% to 230,870
The Los Angeles Times lost 4.2% of its weekday circ to 815,723
The Chicago Tribune slipped 2.1% to 566,827
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported daily circ dropped 4.8% to 345,252.
Small circulation gains were reported by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the New York Daily News.
The New York Times, which has reported small overall circulation gains in recent years, thanks to the roll-out of new regional printing plants for its national edition, compensating for the loss of metropolitan circulation in New York, reported a loss of circulation this term, down 1.9% to 1,120,420.
It is sad that newspapers are declining, but it has to be partially because of the exorbitant cost of advertising in the local paper. For some reason I don’t think supply and demand is working here.
I would much rather read the paper in print, as opposed to online, there is just something nostalgic about holding a newspaper. But we have strayed from local writers and opinion reporting to nationalized news. Just in today’s A section of the ER there were 13 bylines from newspapers other than our own.
Maybe the ER could get some of it’s wonderful bloggers to write a column once a week, as opposed to Thomas Elias’ syndicated column. We may get more buy in from a community who knows it’s writers and has the ability to interact with them.
The sole bright spot continues to be the New York Post, whose weekday circulation is up an impressive 7.6% to 724,748 in the six month period. The Post has a winning combination of a low cover prices and lively non-liberal writing.
Most people who love to read also love to hold what they read in their hands…it’s a more intimate experience. Few, if any, care to smudge that experience with spin and tripe.
I think both you and Meagan are absolutely right.