"A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier"
-H. L. Mencken, newspaperman
Time to substitute "internet" for "newspaper"?
From 24/7 Wall Street:
The newspaper industry has continued its relentless downward spiral, which started with the advent of the internet and accelerated during the Great Recession. The pace of the decline has not slowed. New research shows that over 2,000 newspapers have closed since 2004, a staggering figure given that the industry was once among the largest employers in America.Related:
Penny Abernathy, the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism, is widely considered the preeminent authority on the number of newspapers in the United States. That is not an easy task, since the number is in the thousands, and some are so small that their fates are hard to track. She is the author of “The Expanding News Deserts,” a term coined to describe areas where there is almost no local news coverage.
Abernathy told 24/7 Wall St. that, “It appears at this stage that we’ve lost approximately 2,100 papers, all but 70 of which are weeklies, since 2004.” The industry implosion has left almost half of the counties in America (1,449) with only one newspaper, which is usually a weekly. As of the most recent count, 171 counties do not have a paper at all.
The number of papers in America is currently about 7,000, but as revenue at most of them declines, that number is bound to shrink further. Some newspapers already are close to shuttering. Publishers, both individual owners and chains, have resorted to the equivalent of life support. A recent example is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which was started 233 years ago, will cut the number of days it is printed from five to three. Two years ago, the paper appeared seven times a week. Management says that it plans to phase out the print edition completely. While the paper may survive online, the “downsizing” will cost dozens of jobs. A drop in the numbers of days a paper appears is part of the industry’s playbook to cut expenses.
No one in the newspaper business has come up with a solution to the industry’s falling revenue. Very few newspapers continue to flourish. Among them is The New York Times. Well over 3 million people pay for digital versions of the paper and its other products. Management has set a goal to reach 10 million paid subscribers by 2025. The Times, however, can afford a newsroom large enough to create a product that is unequaled anywhere else in the United States. The editorial staff of the paper is over 1,200 people....MORE
"The Decline of American Journalism Is an Antitrust Problem"
"Automation, Fact Checking and the Decline of the News Business (plus Tracy and Hepburn)":
"What If the Newspaper Industry Made A Colossal Mistake?"
"...Morocco Bans Sharing Newspapers To Protect Publisher Business Models"
Media: Google and Facebook's ‘Digital Duopoly’ and What Role Advertising Plays in All of It (plus Jeff Bezos and Izabella Kaminska stop by) GOOG; FB; AMZN
Media: US Digital Advertising Up 22% In 2018, Exceeding $100B (AMZN; GOOG; GDPR)
Media—Amazon Wants To Run Digital Advertising and Subscriptions For Newspapers
ZeroHedge Makes NY Mag's "Extremely Helpful List of Fake and Misleading News Sites" (buy gold)
Study Showing "Fake News' Beating 'Real News'" Is Fake
"UK's News Media Association says Google and Facebook should fund the journalism from which they profit"
Apple is talking to big newspapers about joining its subscription service
"Everything is Changing; So Should Antitrust" (advertising, the media, Goog and FB)
Is Venture Capital Destroying Online Journalism?
"A Bright Side to the Financial Stumbles of Digital Media"
CJR: "BuzzFeed and the digital media meltdown"
"Journalists drink too much, are bad at managing emotions, and operate at a lower level than average, according to a new study"
And a random sampling of posts based on a lifetime of observing and using the product of journalists in the furtherance of personal goals e.g. an urbane, witty presence, world domination, etc.:
Every Journalist a Personal Brand
Adventure Capital: Ebay Founder Omidyar And NSA Nightmare Glenn Greenwald Team Up in a $250 Million Journalism Venture
Google Goes Longform: In-Depth Articles to Accompany Topical Search Results (GOOG)
Journalism: Henry Blodget and Business Insider Investing in Longform Writing
Today in OccupyWallStreet News: "I'm a F***ing Journalist, You Motherf***er!"Adventure Capital: Ebay Founder Omidyar And NSA Nightmare Glenn Greenwald Team Up in a $250 Million Journalism Venture
Google Goes Longform: In-Depth Articles to Accompany Topical Search Results (GOOG)
Journalism: Henry Blodget and Business Insider Investing in Longform Writing
Columbia Journalism Review: The extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture
"The Journalist’s New Escape Plan: Start-Ups" (and Bloomberg goes VC)
"Why Aren’t Top Journalists Rich?"
Media: It's the Talent, Stupid!
"Journalism: Go Longform or Go Home"
"How Will the End of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?"
