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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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To: Grampa Dave

“You know the answer to your question.”

FR is addictive and you just can’t stay away? Too many FRiends here? What did I miss?


61 posted on 01/28/2024 11:15:46 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: joshua c

This works and saves us a lot of money. Cut the Cord!

“anyone still funding the cable tv news channels

now would be a good time to cut the cord

force them to offer a la carte programming.”


62 posted on 01/28/2024 11:23:28 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Trust no one, who is not a proven and valued/trusty one or a family member or a long time friend! )
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To: Rummyfan
But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late.

That’s delusional.

63 posted on 01/28/2024 1:25:03 PM PST by FoxInSocks ("Hope is not a course of action." — M. O'Neal, USMC)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

The only thing this thread is missing is Nelson from the Simpsons pointing and saying:

HA HA


64 posted on 01/28/2024 1:36:15 PM PST by woodbutcher1963
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To: joshua c

“force them to offer a la carte programming”

We discovered a hidden service on Spectrum six years ago when we first subscribed. They offered a “TV Choice” service over the ‘net. They provided a base selection of national networks and local channels (I think about 30) AND you could make an a la carte selection of 10 from another 30 or 40. My wife chose about 8 sports channels and I got 2 movie channels.

Since then, I think they’ve gone system-wide with the offering. I recall I stumbled upon it by looking at the source code for their web site and, of all things, I found the script there telesales people had to use, how far they could go on price, how to make last-minute offers before letting the prospect truly say “bye.” It was amazing all that company information was in-the-clear in their source code! I haven’t looked since then to see if it’s still there.

We use a combination of that Spectrum TV Choice service and some streaming services (Prime, Netflix are the main ones). All-in, we are probably spending more than we did on cable, but it is a LOT better and we don’t have to pay for liberal crap we don’t want!


65 posted on 01/28/2024 1:58:41 PM 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: ProtectOurFreedom

Good summary!


66 posted on 01/28/2024 4:02:46 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Trust no one, who is not a proven and valued/trusty one or a family member or a long time friend! )
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To: Rummyfan

I wonder if anyone in the corrupt news media thought if they just tell the truth that they would make more money and stay employed???


67 posted on 01/29/2024 12:30:20 AM PST by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: minnesota_bound
They think they are telling the truth.

Their problems began when they bought into the lie that we all have our own truths.

-PJ

68 posted on 01/29/2024 12:32:52 AM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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