It's Official: Newspapers Are Dying
Next week, the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer will probably stop publishing, following the Rocky Mountain News into oblivion. After its demise, the Tucson Citizen will probably be the next to go.
The NYT, which recently had to sell its office space and promise to rent it back, says that by next year all "two newspaper" markets could be "one newspaper" markets — and "one newspaper markets" will probably have no newspapers at all.
As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero [NYT]
(Photo:The Notorious T.D.P.)
Post a comment
Comments:
I'll miss the PI. The Seattle Times is nice, but was never as good of a read as the PI.
Its always sad when something thats been around forever isnt there anymore, and I think older people that dont use computers will miss it the most, but with internet news sites able to do what the paper is able to do, and is current in real time, why would you wait until tomorrow to get todays news? I think some form of local paper will continue on for local news, even if it is in an online format. I guess we can add these guys to the growing list of jobless.
Noo! Not my PI!
I think it's time to start raising money for the papers, old-school style. Anyone up for a bake sale, or car wash? :D
Until the Singularity happens and humankind is forced to re-create offline communication modes so that we can resist enslavement by our MechaOverlords, I'm fine with print media going bye-bye (just sad for all those folks losing their jobs).
If my local paper would go back to reporting local news I might still be buying it. 80% of the paper is AP/Reuters news feeds which I can look-up online thank-you without spending $1.00 every day.
I thought about helping out my local paper. I got only and looked up their subscription rates. Almost $200 for a HALF year? No thanks...I just wanted it for comics and coupons. I can watch the local news, download comics and coupons.
I'll miss the Rocky, the paper of my childhood, which once put a photo of a man in short shorts with his scrotum hanging out on the front page
@Megladon: "but with internet news sites able to do what the paper is able to do, and is current in real time"
But the internet doesn't pay for news, and newsgathering is expensive.
Only time I read the paper is when going twosies. My local one had a deal where they let you try it for three months for free.It been over 5 months and they still haven't asked me for any money. Think they are just trying to keep their subscriber base up or something.
I'd be upset but, save Joe Posnanski, the KC Star is garbage.
This is only until 2012, when the "Newspaper as blankets" industry will come back into roaring style.
@cmkennedy: When you need to put a classifieds ad in the newspaper... WHO YOU GUNNA CALL?!? Sorry I couldn't help myself.
@cmkennedy: My grandkids will ask "what's a newspaper?" just like my kids will ask "what's an encyclopedia?"
There's something about "reading the paper" that the internet just doesn't capture; it's just different. It's the sole reason I go to a coffee shop every Sunday.
I never gave much thought to the importance of newspaper until I started reading this site regularly. Most consumers seem to have an Ace in the hole every time they go up against a major corporation that has wronged them: the newspaper. They fear bad publicity, and oftentimes it's not a story something like USA Today or CNN would want to cover -- but the local paper would eat up.
For that reason, I'm going to support newspapers to the very end.
@corinthos: More subscribers = more ad money. The cost fo the paper probably just covers delivery expenses and maybe the cost of the paper itself. The real money is in ads which make less money as fewer people subscribe.
I'm not surprised. Newspapers can't keep up with the instant access news of the internet. And add to the fact no one really reads anymore.
But I don't think newspapers should shut down completely though. Local news is still very relevant. I think newspapers should just scale back on the printed format and focus more on electronic distribution.
It'll be a tragedy for democracy. I know a lot of papers have gone down the shitter in the last couple decades and are hardly worth the paper they're printed on, but the fact remains that in most cities, the daily paper has a larger news staff than all other news outlets in the city COMBINED -- even in big cities like Chicago. (Chicago Tribune, even after cuts, has a bigger reporting staff than ALL television and radio stations in the market combined.)
The TV and radio stations largely cull their news from the daily papers. Weekly magazines do too. So do most blogs and internet news sources. Without a daily paper's newsroom doing all the footwork to get the first reporting, we will see a massive decline in reporting -- the ramifications of losing newspapers will impact ALL news media in the market, and quality will fall across the board, INCLUDING on the internet.
The internet won't pay for news, so an internet-only model will not be able to support the expense of newsgathering.
I live in a small city with an EXCELLENT blogging/citizen journalist network that does seriously top-notch investigative and in-depth reporting. Those bloggers still depend on the newspaper for their research, for reporting that kicks their investigations off, etc. Cuts in the staff at our local paper have led to a decline in the quality of local investigative blogging, because it's simply harder to do without the newspaper. And, of course, those bloggers work free, so their time is limited.
I guess the business model of AMNY and Metro are working well, since they are free due to being ad supported.
Journalism in America is dead. Every newspaper has a well known bias, and is simply a cheer leader for their political party.
No one trusts news papers anymore. Some will say this is due to the internet, or the recession, blah blah. It's due to newspapers not filling their national responsibility in covering what our government is doing.
The separation between Government and media no longer exists. I say, RIP. And I can't wait for the online news papers to fall as well.
If the newspapers go away, then how will I read the news while on the subway?
If / when print newspapers finally bite the big one, we will need nonprofit organizations out there to sponsor the rarely-found but badly-needed serious in-depth investigative reporting for which they are renowned. Even now, in the age of crap-for-reporting, the NY Times or WaPo can be relied upon to put out a serious and necessary piece every year or two. (The classic case is of course Watergate; one of the more recent is WaPo uncovering conditions in veterans' care.)
In fact, maybe the big newspapers should restructure as nonprofits while they can. Because we need that level of reporting -- god knows, we don't get it from the TV, and no-one holds Internet sources properly accountable -- but yeah, their current state is doomed.
Front_Towards_Enemy: They would have to pay enough to really make it matter.
Bladefist: Yes, there's bias everywhere. So we strive to push and pull it back toward the center to be fair, or we support newspapers which hold onto our views. It's the point we're at now...
Journalism and news is still the right medium to tell a story with immediacy. Why would you want online papers to fail? Where do you think you would go for any kind of news at all? Bloggers can't do it all, and there's a significant amount of skill involved to understanding government, industries, and being able to navigate them to churn out an article.
:) I know the script says "Print is dead" but that doesn't make sense from the actions Egon was performing in the movie.
Egon was busy fixing the printer, and, upset, exclaims "Printer's dead!", which Janine _interprets_ as "Print is dead" and goes on a spiel about it.
The fact that Egon doesn't recapitulate the topic only makes it more obvious he didn't intend to discuss it. And he'd deadpan enough to not mention the mistake. Also, up 'til then Egon hasn't had any *reason* to pay attention to Janine.
Or, that's how I feel it was. It's more funny that way and it fits the characters and the movie quite well.
As a former Gannett employee, let me assure you I cannot wait to dance on their proverbial grave.
They flew into my state in 2002 with a checkbook, bought out SEVEN profit-churning newspapers in the state, then immediately started laying off staff and 'downsizing' in the name of stockholders, leaving all seven papers (from different corners of the state) sharing reporting staff, printing presses, drivers, etc.
Trust me, their plans went well.
People dropped subscriptions like hotcakes, and this was right at the dawn of the online paper and right before the blogosphere explosion.
No quality=no readers.
It's not the 'net or the blogs that killed the papers in my state... it's corporate greed.
The real problem with this is that if you look at how the way people get their news has changed over the last 50 years, it's been mostly a shift towards television and away from newspapers. The Internet is only a small component, still. A lot more people still get their news primarily from TV than primarily from the Internet.
THAT is the real issue. It's that TELEVISION is what has replaced newspapers, not the Internet. And TV is a lot less in-depth than most good newspapers. TV is also ideally suited as a propaganda platform for people who want to manipulate public opinion in various ways (not just political, but also pro-corporate) - it's both visual and auditory, it encourages oversimplificiation of issues, and it's very centrally controlled (unlike the Internet or newspapers). Thus, it's easier to buy off/coerce the small number of influential TV producers than it would be to do the same to a large number of independent newspapers. Anyone remember how the TV networks were such shameless cheerleaders for the Iraq war, while newspapers actually exposed a lot of the lies about the case for war BEFORE the war actually started? Because the TV people had such a larger audience, they were basically able to shout down the few responsible newspaper agencies/chains.
I think that newspapers may eventually be replaced by some sort of online equivalent, but until that happens I don't like that people are becoming more dependent on TV for news.
I hate newspapers only because I never learned how to properly fold them for reading.
@floraposte: The integrity was better. Even if there was always some bias. At the end of the day, the newspapers were loyal to America. The country became more bi-partisan and the news papers changed their goal.
Instead of educating America on the direction of the country, they made their own America agenda and pushed it.
This was a business decision that failed.
@LatherRinseRepeat: Plenty of people read. Everyone reads. Not everything is on video, and lets face it - I hate the talking heads on CNN and Fox. I'd rather read a story and not get the yammering and the "ums" and awkward pauses.
The biggest problem is that the internet isn't making enough money to support a staff to investigate local news...and that's a problem because people like me who make a living off the news and its viability find it even more difficult to get a job or make a living because the internet model of news distribution still isn't making as much money as the print side, as far as ad revenues go.
@Megladon: in my house of 4 people, i will flip through the headlines, mostly focusing on the "local" section. my mom will read that as well as do the crosswords, my brother does the jumble and reads the comics, and my dad doesn't really touch it - he gets his news online and through Barron's (it's a weekly financial news paper published by Dow Jones & Company, owned by News Corp)
the newspaper also runs charlotte.com where i'm getting more of my local news
@conquestofbread: I tried to find a link but I couldn't. We had a laminated copy at my last workplace. It was a very sad story, a man lost his home in a forest fire, but the picture was priceless. Bonus points to anyone who can locate the cover
The key quote:
"And magnifying the problem, for many chains, is a heavy burden of debt that they took on, mostly in a spree of buying other newspapers from 2005 to 2007, just before the bottom dropped out of the business.
The Tribune Company, for instance, owner of The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and other papers, filed for bankruptcy in December, largely because of its debt load. The reality is that even though the economic climate is hard for newspapers, without their debt payments the publishers in bankruptcy would still make money, as do most newspapers around the country."
So, a bunch of slicksters, buying up papers like Monopoly pieces - at odds with what activist-types were saying was both bad policy and bad business - are what killed many of these papers. Grrrrr...
Newspapers might last a few more years if they weren't all owned by evil megacorporations like Scripps and Gannett, who make every decision based on what's good for the shareholders instead of what's good for the paper.
The real tragedy of the disappearance of newspapers is not "what will I read on the subway or in the waiting room" but who will keep an eye on those in power. Nixon would probably never have resigned if it hadn't been for a couple of newspaper reporters.
@Bladefist: If your theory that bias is what killed newspapers were correct, then 24 cable news should have died long before. Because their "bias" is far more egregious than anything in most newspapers.
It turns out, you're simply wrong. What has killed newspapers is simply that people have stopped reading them in favor of watching television (which is even MORE biased, not less). They were hanging on by a thread, because they still had a relatively loyal group of readers. Then the Internet came along, and took another (smaller) chunk out of them, and that's been enough to take many of them out.
Also, the main bias of most news in this country is pro-corporate, not pro-any-one-political-party, just so we're clear.
But now what am I gonna use to line the snake enclosures? :(
Perhaps if a Republican is elected into the Presidency in four years, newspapers will have a resurgance. I liked having a powerful entity watching over the government's activities and I think this is what our founders envisioned. However, we weren't going to see that over the next four years anyway.
I can't understand how the Dallas Morning News stays in business. For several years they were kicked out of the circulation audit bureau or whatever it is because they blatently and fraudulently inflated their circulation numbers. They were sued by every big advertiser in town. They constantly make people mad by throwing a weekly free edition in everyone's yard with no way to opt out. They're doing everything they can to fail but they won't die for some reason.
One of the best examples of newspapers failure.
I handled advertizing for a new car dealership, and spent a considerable amount each month, when I noticed subscription numbers and the size of the paper dropping, I asked for a small discount since we were reaching less people. I was told that my rates would in fact go up, due to the rising cost of publication, and decreased revenue. After I stopped laughing at my sales rep, I realized she wasnt joking. That was the day I stopped wasting money on print ads. I hope her next job works out a little better.
I haven't read a printed newspaper in a very long while, but there is something nostalgic about turning those pages. Sad to see it go.
Still though, online newspaper ftw :)
No I don't care. This is what they get for years of ripping off advertisers...
Online advertising not paying off? Maybe that's because it gives advertisers real ROI numbers, not fuzzy math made up by the ad salesmen who quotes how many people the paper goes to.
Who's intelligencer now, Seattle?
When I canceled my LA Times subscription 11 months ago, I was surprised the circulation telephone rep made no attempt to keep my business. She just said, "Ok, we will stop deliver." I was half expecting a sales pitch to keep me, especially since I had been a subscriber for 24 years! The LA Times is an employee-owned business via an ESOP. Yet, she didn't take the attitude of an owner at least attempting to change my mind.
The only reason I have a (Sunday) subscription to the local newspaper is for the ads and coupons, and the weekly tv listings. Yes, I could (and probably will in short time)get all that online, but it's so much quicker to flip through physical paper imo. As for news, I read that all online, and even on the newspaper's own website, for free.
You can certainly add out of work newspaper staff members (reporters as well as lower level editors and the like) to the growing list of jobless. The daily newspaper on my school's campus is having financial difficulties.
It is quite a bad time to be jobless, but the downfall of newspapers has been imminent since long before the beginning of this recession. People apparently don't read enough papers, and ad revenues have fallen tremendously, viciously reinforcing this. I hope that the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal at least survive online. While journalists differ significantly from other professions in that they are not licensed and do not require special education, the cream of the crop journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post are often very well-educated, articulate, with many holding advanced degrees.
The argument can be made that this is good, that the newspapers are finally losing their monopoly to the "little guy," and now, finally, bloggers can pick it up. I love so many blogs, I'm on Google Reader hours a day reading them, but they can't get it all. NYT and WSJ quality reporting often requires considerable resources and knowledge.
Egon Spengler was dead-on in 1984...
Print is dead.
Say goodbye to antiquated press mediums.