'Are Newspapers Dying?' Thread

[The Baron]

Circulation Is Still Declining

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

X

[The Baron]

Travis Herrick said:

X

Sorry.

[Dagwan]

Maybe if they rubbed the papers a little the circulation would improve.

---

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx

Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!

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[the_original_b_dog]

Circulation losses are a given by now. They might bottom out at some point, but more likely, newspapers are going to demand a system that measures online use in addition to circulation numbers for a more accurate representation of their importance in their communities. That's because, despite the bad news, newspapers remain a primary source of news and information in their areas, but that's being obscured.

There's no doubt that circulation and (more importantly) advertising losses have hampered newspapers. But the biggest issue has been the speculators who bought into newspapers before the recession hit. Those groups -- in particular, the owners of the Chicago Tribune group and the McClatchy group -- saddled themselves with outrageous debt for papers that immediately began losing value. Their cost-cutting is what's harming the long-term viability of newspapers. They're making the whole industry look worse with desperation moves such as endless job cutting, printing newspapers hundreds of miles from their hometowns (so they don't contain up-to-the-minute information) and consolidating copy desks and design desks regionally (so that a person editing a story about the street where you live has never even lived in your state). These decisions will erode credibility, make selling newspapers individually more difficult and prove a longer-term detriment over their short-term savings.

Credibility is what matters to papers. That's what attracts readers to them, whether in print or online, and in turn, that's what makes them desirable to advertisers. Preserving credibility is the root of the issue. The danger to newspapers is when those in charge don't care about that.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Amen to that. I never understood why such things as leveraged buyouts are allowed -- letting someone buy a company without actually having the money to make the purchase, instead using that company's revenues to pay for the deal -- but it has been disastrous for Tribune and McClatchy.

Although there was a time when one could do leveraged buyouts and make a fat profit, it didn't work with newspaper companies because the recession hurt advertising, and advertisers, after years when Craigslist and Ebay leached away the classified ad business, the soft housing market drained real estate ads, and the next generation of subscribers decided there was no reason to actually pay for something that isn't up-to-the-minute and doesn't tell them what they want to hear, while the current generation of subscribers is getting more and more fed up with having to pay higher prices for a product that can't be as good as it was because the staffs have been cut to the bone.

[Figserello]

The Baron said:

Travis Herrick said:

X

Sorry.

I know we're all friends here, but what's with the kiss and make up routine?

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

The Baron said:

Travis Herrick said:

X

Sorry.

Don't apologize. It was the first "X" thread I was able to join in on in a long while.

[The Baron]

Figserello said:

The Baron said:

Travis Herrick said:

X

Sorry.

I know we're all friends here, but what's with the kiss and make up routine?

I messed up setting up the thread, so it just said "X" for a minute - during that minute, Travis posted in reply to the "X", but by then I had changed it, so it looked like he was making a nonsensical response, which was not my intent.

[Dagwan]

You usually like to post the nonsensical replies yourself.

---

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx

Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!

---

[The Baron]

Dagwan said:

You usually like to post the nonsensical replies yourself.

---

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx

Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies

Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!

---

I just didn't want Travis to think I was messing with him, when I wasn't.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Well it is entirely possible I would never have noticed.

[George]

Some grim words from "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau, in the current Rolling Stone:

Q: Are you worried about the comic strip becoming an obsolete form as more and more newspapers disappear? If you were getting out of Yale today, would you be thinking of doing a comic strip?

TRUDEAU: As you note, it's not really comics that are becoming obsolete — it's newspapers generally. We're all going off the cliff together. Up until now, strip syndication was the closest thing to tenure that pop culture offered. If you got your foot in the door and developed a readership, you had a career. Today my client list is eroding, but since it's so large to begin with, I can probably look forward to several more years of this. I'll be one of the old dudes they ask to turn out the lights.

Needless to say, I no longer advise anyone to get into the business. Even online comics are so far mostly a bust. The future is with graphic novels or animation or something no one has imagined yet. If I were graduating now, I'd be standing with my portfolio outside of Pixar.