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The News Business Really Is Cratering
Politico ^ | 27 Jan 2024 | Jack Shafer

Posted on 01/28/2024 8:20:44 AM PST by Rummyfan

Journalists across the country burst into flames of panic this week, as bad news for the news business crested and erupted everywhere all at once.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire publisher of the Los Angeles Times, laid off 20 percent of his newsroom. Over at Time magazine, its billionaire owners, Marc and Lynne Benioff, did the same for 15 percent of their unionized editorial employees. This latest conflagration had ignited at Sports Illustrated the previous week as catastrophic layoffs were dispensed via email to most staffers. Business Insider (whose parent company Axel Springer also owns POLITICO) jettisoned 8 percent of its staff while workers at Condé Nast, Forbes, the New York Daily News and elsewhere walked out to protest forthcoming cuts at their shops.

The news business has always been cyclical, dipping during economic downturns and then improving on the upswing. But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late. Nearly everywhere you look — the Washington Post, NPR, Vice, Vox, NBC News, Texas Tribune, WNYC, Barstool Sports, just to name a few — companies have axed huge swathes of staff. Newsroom employment is down more than 26 percent since 2008. Buzzfeed News is dead. The magazine business has atrophied, too, as newsstand revenues have fallen from $6.8 billion in 2006 to $1 billion in 2022. Looking on as the media business bleeds out, journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, a man who once evangelized for the industry’s electronic future, folded his hands in his lap like a mortician and asked in his blog if it was time to give up on old news.

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: lyingmediots; magazine; media; msm
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They simply do not get it! Their product is garbage! Their adherence to the orthodoxy of the Democrat Party, diversity, multiculturalism, and now DIE, as well as giving Dem politicians a pass while excoriating Republicans over the tiniest peccadilloes ... no one wants to read what they write. And these days, people have alternative news sources. It's not that Los Angelenos can't support the LA Times. It's that Los Angelenos WON'T support the LA Times.
1 posted on 01/28/2024 8:20:44 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

They’re trying to set up a federal bailout of Establishment media.


2 posted on 01/28/2024 8:22:08 AM PST by aynrandfreak (Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry)
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To: Rummyfan

Most Americans believe that you can’t believe anything coming out of this country’s “news” rooms these days. It’s all fake news given to them by the Dung Beetle Party for distribution to the ignorant.


3 posted on 01/28/2024 8:25:51 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer ( Joe Pedo's America! The Motel 6 to the world. Joe's Border Patrol will keep the light on for you.)
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To: Rummyfan

The “News” business hasn’t produced “news” in years.

It’s 100% propaganda now - on both sides. Even Fox is CNN wannabe…


4 posted on 01/28/2024 8:32:26 AM PST by joethedrummer (We can't vote our way out of this, folks..)
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To: Rummyfan

Billionaires can only write off so much of a loss, these figures who went and scouped up all these companies in a failed bid to control narratives have had enough.


5 posted on 01/28/2024 8:33:03 AM PST by Bayard
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To: joethedrummer

Fox is owned and staffed by leftists, its only a sock puppet of right leaning news at this point.


6 posted on 01/28/2024 8:33:47 AM PST by Bayard
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To: Rummyfan

“But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late.”

What?


7 posted on 01/28/2024 8:34:07 AM PST by Ge0ffrey
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To: Rummyfan
Translation: The LEFTY news business is cratering.

Tell enough lies, and even some of the gullible will figure out the lies.

A rule of thumb in business: It takes "x" expenditure of funds to bring in a customer, but many multiples of "x" expenditure to try to bring back a pissed-off customer.

Walk away. It looks tiny, when one does it. It is a huge effect when many do it.

8 posted on 01/28/2024 8:39:07 AM PST by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: Ge0ffrey
“But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late.” What?

I caught that too. Then I noticed the article is from Politico.

9 posted on 01/28/2024 8:42:42 AM PST by Flycatcher (God speaks to us, through the supernal lightness of birds, in a special type of poetry.)
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To: Rummyfan

They miss the good old days of monopoly control of the news when people had no alternatives to the big dailies, AP and UPI, ABC, CBS and NBC.


10 posted on 01/28/2024 8:42:42 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (“Occupy your mind with good thoughts or your enemy will fill them with bad ones.” ~ Thomas More)
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To: Rummyfan; All
I would say to Mr Shafer... your news business is cratering! There are many outlets that are thriving.
11 posted on 01/28/2024 8:44:25 AM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: joethedrummer

I would propose an experiment. Some wealthy individual buys up a legacy publication, say Sports Illustrated. They get rid of all the woke BS and go back to the format from oh, the 1970’s. Be interesting to see what would happen.


12 posted on 01/28/2024 8:45:13 AM PST by technically right
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To: technically right

With ESPN, why would you even need SI?


13 posted on 01/28/2024 8:46:12 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Rummyfan

Journalism today is TOTAL PROPAGANDA and people are waking up to this fact.


14 posted on 01/28/2024 8:50:00 AM PST by acoulterfan
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To: acoulterfan

AI can do propaganda better than humans.

No original thinking is required—or allowed.


15 posted on 01/28/2024 8:52:00 AM PST by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: Rummyfan

All of these worthless lib-propaganda spewing rags should die, sooner rather than later. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving hive of scumbags and liars.


16 posted on 01/28/2024 8:52:13 AM PST by Newtoidaho (All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.)
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To: Rummyfan

It is not the entire news business that is cratering.

News on the right is doing well, even expanding.


17 posted on 01/28/2024 8:57:48 AM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Rummyfan

The “News” business is cratering because what they are selling isn’t news, it’s leftwing propaganda.


18 posted on 01/28/2024 9:06:58 AM PST by Dan in Wichita
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To: Rummyfan

Like late night “comedians” who now pitch “political comedy” many news casters have become political pawns and their readers and watchers are fleeing.


19 posted on 01/28/2024 9:10:40 AM PST by antidemoncrat
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To: Rummyfan

I don’t watch network MSM news anymore. I don’t even listen to local drive-time news because they get their news from AP, Reuters, et al and in urban areas they’re just mouthpieces for national leftists.


20 posted on 01/28/2024 9:10:44 AM PST by Gaffer
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