HISTORY!!!......To much opinion in what should be just reporting the news!!!!!!.......so, now, we all flock to online sites to gather the national/international news........but the local stuff, you still like the local hardcopy.....

6,109 fewer print sales of the TNT in 2007 than in 2006, but "online readership climbed...to 819,00 from 733,300;" it's hard to tell but it sounds like the TNT is - overall - moving ahead. Fewer trees used, that's certain.

That's a great article, OT. Here are some of my favorite snippets:

__Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, said recently in a speech in London, 'At places where editors and publishers gather, the mood these days is funereal. Editors ask one another, ‘How are you?,’ in that sober tone one employs with friends who have just emerged from rehab or a messy divorce. Keller’s speech appeared on the Web site of its sponsor, the Guardian, under the headline 'NOT DEAD YET.'__

__Until recently, newspapers were accustomed to operating as high-margin monopolies. To own the dominant, or only, newspaper in a mid-sized American city was, for many decades, a kind of license to print money. In the Internet age, however, no one has figured out how to rescue the newspaper in the United States or abroad. Newspapers have created Web sites that benefit from the growth of online advertising, but the sums are not nearly enough to replace the loss in revenue from circulation and print ads.__

_Public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line. A recent study published by Sacred Heart University found that fewer than twenty per cent of Americans said they could believe 'all or most' media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than twenty-seven per cent just five years ago. 'Less than one in five believe what they read in print,' the 2007 'State of the News Media' report, issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, concluded. 'CNN is not really more trusted than Fox, or ABC than NBC.' The local paper is not viewed much differently than the New York Times. Vastly more Americans believe in flying saucers and 9/11 conspiracy theories than believe in the notion of balanced—much less 'objective' - mainstream news media. Nearly nine in ten Americans, according to the Sacred Heart study, say that the media consciously seek to influence public policies, though they disagree about whether the bias is liberal or conservative._

_Traditional media just need to realize that the online world isn’t the enemy. In fact, it’s the thing that will save them, if they fully embrace it._

Last edited by morgan (2008-03-31 06:52:07)

from Radio Open Source...

This seems to be the moment in which the death of the American newspaper can be foretold with some authority — by Eric Alterman in this week’s New Yorker; by the new local owners of the great old papers...

DOWNLOAD MP3 PODCAST

Last edited by NineInchNachos (2008-05-14 20:01:22)

On the watch list: The Seattle Times

"The Seattle Times Co. to cut about 200 jobs":http://www.crosscut.com/seattle-newspapers/13208/The+Seattle+Times+Co.+will+cut+about+200+jobs/

_The Seattle Times Co. today told its staff that it will reduce the newspaper's workforce by about 200, through layoff and attrition, and cut $15 million from the company's operating budget this year. Those figures are approximate, says spokesperson Jill Mackie. She said about two-thirds of the job cuts would result in actual layoffs, while a third are positions not presently filled. The company's Seattle-area employment is 1,845 full and part time people._

This is a disturbing trend. It goes like this: revenues are down, jobs get cut. For whatever reason, a high percentage of the cut takes place in the newsroom. With fewer writers, production spreads thenner, quality and coverage decrease resulting in a degraded product. End result: less revenue. The cycle then repeats.

Last edited by morgan (2008-04-08 07:10:26)

Trib's own Mark Briggs shares some troubled thoughts

Last edited by NineInchNachos (2008-05-14 20:03:02)

Counterpoint: McClatchy struggles while Black expands? Here's an interesting article on David Black's growing empire. Among the 150 papers he owns is Tacoma's Daily Index

Since Canadian media mogul David Black snapped up The King County Journal and nine other newspapers from Horvitz Newspapers Inc. two years ago, he has become Washington's largest publisher of community newspapers.

In the past several months, Black's Sound Publishing Co. subsidiary has bought more community newspapers, launched two new ones and increased the frequency of several publications from weekly to twice a week.

Link: As dailies retrench, Black expands his newspaper empire