In the U.S., gloom for big papers

[tocqueville]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/10/business/papers.php


Such rethinking is sweeping newsrooms across the country as the industry faces a wave of job cuts, among them 700 announced since May at The New York Times Company, including its business operations and the various media properties it owns, and 14 at The Hartford Courant. Most recently cuts have been announced at The Boston Globe (a division of the Times Company), The San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and Newsday, and over the last few years The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have also moved to eliminate jobs.

Industrywide, ad revenue is flat, costs are up and circulation is eroding. At The Inquirer, circulation has dropped 30 percent over the last two decades.

Beyond the industry's economic woes, the future is clouded by the rapid expansion of the Internet, leaving newspapers in an identity crisis as they try to come to grips with fundamental changes in the industry and society that are significantly curbing their growth.

Pessimism about the industry's ability to overcome these obstacles continues to drive down the price of newspaper stocks. Wall Street has revised its third-quarter earnings estimates downward for most newspaper companies. The turmoil is largely confined to big metropolitan dailies, not small papers where the advertising base is more stable.

[NVMojo]

1. I see neocon people involved, can't murder journalists in US like Iraq ...

so lay them off for profit!!!! Then no one will tell the stories that the bloggers regurgitate daily!!! They will have silence in America!

[Angry Girl]

5. Remember Gary Webb?

And you don't have to kill these so-called journalists either: A simple "please" will often do the trick:

Operation Mockingbird
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past 25 years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit.
http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/ciamedia.htm

New York Times Killed Bush Bulge Story
http://www.musicforamerica.org/node/72245

[katinmn]

2. Newspapers would have consumer support if they reported the truth

instead of being in it only for the money.

It's their own fucking fault. They wanted media consolidation. Short term gain, eroding support from those they are there to serve.

The Internet is developing its own media stars.

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Let's be judicious about whom we include in 'they'

There are more than 50,000 reporters and editors in the U.S., and I guaran-fucking-tee you that the vast majority are frustrated and angry over the restrictions imposed on them and the jobs they want to do by the suit-wearing asshats.

[katinmn]

6. Yes, I was speaking about the corporate masters, BUT

journalists who work for them do have a choice whether to go along with it or not.

Never forget that it was the drum beats of the media, from the NYT and every major TV station on down to local papers and affiliates that fed the lies to get people to support the invasion of Iraq. They never investigated election abuses to any serious degree. They are still feeding lies of omission.

I have more respect for independent journalists working for alternatives and online news sites than I do for those who tow the line and report lies or slanted news. Behind most of the online sites like AlterNet, Common Dreams, and Media Matters are journalists who had made the big time, but rejected the editorial control and refused to work under it. To give up the prestige and audience and try to make it in a new medium earning a lot less money epitomizes integrity for me.

Journalists are supposed to be our eyes and ears. They are supposed to be bringing truth to light. There are everyday heroes who fight to keep their reporting intact and their stories do appear here and there - Salt Lake Tribune, SF Chronicle, Seattle PI, Star Tribune (just to name a few of the "S" papers that come to mind) and they are appreciated. Even though many of us have come to despise and mock "corporate media", boy do we ever share and circulate the rare good stories carried by corporate media that tell the truth, just like it was a major coup. Wish there were more of them.

I empathize with the economic costs of standing by your principles. But if there was ever a time to take a stand and go against the flow, it is now.

We need a lot more Will Pitts and no more Judy Millers.

[firefox]

3. I have bought maybe 6 newspapers in 5 years

And those were for coupons. I am insulted by their content. Fourth Estate my ass.

[radfringe]

7. If I wanted to hear/read/watch lies

and propaganda - I'd be tuned into faux news

[depakid]

8. My local paper is a laughingstock in the community

The Oregonian is owned by out of state interests (Newhouse publishing)- and even has an out of state host for it's embarrassingly bad website (made even more glaring my the fact that the site was down three days during the East Coast blackouts).

The paper isn't responsive to the Portland area, it invariably slants its copy to further the Republican interests of its publisher- and prints so many equvocations (and outright falsehoods) that it's no longer taken seriously. People actually laugh at it.

Last year, it even got scooped by a little weekly alternative paper on a major story (that many say it had been covering up)- for which the indy reporter actually won the Pulitzer Prize!

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2005/investigative-reporting/

It's gotten so bad, they can't even give three month free subscriptions away! Nobody wants to bother with it anymore.

The bottom line is that they put out a lousy product- and their circulation would be falling even if they didn't have the net to compete with.

[Tesha]

9. Newspapers have one basis to sell product: their reputation for accuracy.

Newspapers only have one real basis from which to sell their
product: their reputation for accuracy. And through the last
couple of decades, they proved, time and time again, that
they *DON'T CARE* about accuracy and completeness any more.

In addition, they supported the Republicans even as the
Republicans helped destroy the reputation of the media with
their incessant cries of "Left Wing Media Bias!!!!"

This particular chicken (the destruction of newspapers' reputation
for accuracy) is now coming home to roost; people are figuring out
that if they can't trust the news in the paper, and there are better
things in which to wrap their fish, then there ain't no need no more
to buy the daily fishwrap. We've cancelled one of our dailies (and
remind them of exactly why every time they call us to resubscribe)
and we'd cancel the other except we still need to know what days
the town won't be collecting the garbage.

Tesha