(Pew Report) RIP: Over 100 newspapers dumped in year, ads down 50%, circulation hits bottom

Washington Examiner ^ | May 24, 2015 | Paul Bedard

[Zakeet]

The demise of big city print media, displayed in full by the painfully slow sale of the mammoth New York Daily News, is going nationwide as ad sales decline 50 percent and circulation plummets, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis

According to their report, "The Declining Value Of U.S. Newspapers," just three different media companies in 2014 alone decided to dump more than 100 newspaper properties. Pew said the companies spun off the money-losing properties "in large part to protect their still-robust broadcast or digital divisions."

[Flick Lives]

[catnipman]

“RIP: Over 100 newspapers dumped in year, ads down 50%, circulation hits bottom”

I needed some good news today!

[catnipman]

“why buy some lib rag for news when all the news in the world is available on the internet”

Indeed. Why pay to have lies delivered to your doorstep when you can get all the lies you want for free on the Internet.

[catnipman]

“Some papers have set up pay walls on the internet so you have to pay to read their news online . but so much on the internet is free, is it really worth it to pay to read online???”

Paywalls simply render the websites behind them invisible to the world and assure that any advertising on such sites will never be seen by anyone, thereby assuring that no one in their right minds would pay those sites for advertisements.

[catnipman]

“But the local TV stations may assume that role”

Personally, I that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

[muir_redwoods]

I read a newspaper over the weekend for the first time in years. The bias in everything was hidden behind the awful writing. The grammar was distracting, something I never noticed in newspapers of twenty years ago.

[Chickensoup]

dailies may be going away but the weeklies rule

[Chickensoup]

look at weekly papers. ours are growing

[Steve_Seattle]

Seattle has two major weeklies - The Weekly and The Stranger - that have lasted at least 15 or 20 years despite the fact that they are distributed for free. They are heavily oriented towards entertainment and left-wing social and political commentary.

They are NOT the equivalent of the old dailies, but they are apparently doing reasonably well. I assume their staff is a small fraction of what the old dailies used to have.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The bias in everything was hidden behind the awful writing."

A few weeks ago, a Chik-Fil-A opened in my area, and the Seattle Times food writer actually used the event as an opportunity to encourage readers to go SOMEWHERE ELSE for a chicken sandwich, even to the point of showing a photo of a chicken sandwich from a local upscale restaurant.

When even food columns are politicized, it's all over as far as "objective" journalism is concerned.

[Chickensoup]

Well you have to realize that it is Seattle and that it would be mandatory that they be leftist rags. But some of the local weeklies are turning into a force, and if they started taking local obits the dailies would be useless.