Under Weight of Its Mistakes, Newspaper Industry Staggers

Washington Post ^ | March 1, 2009 | Howard Kurtz

[Zakeet]

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recalls getting "a feeling in the pit of my stomach" when he learned that the Rocky Mountain News was shutting down. "Even when they were uncovering corruption in the city, even when they were embarrassing us or causing us discomfort, they were making the city better," he says. "It's a huge loss."

The grim echoes of the nearly 150-year-old paper's demise Friday could be heard in newsrooms and communities across the country. Although the Denver Post will still cover Hickenlooper's region, some cities -- most notably San Francisco -- are facing the prospect of life without a major newspaper. Others, from Philadelphia to Chicago to Minneapolis, have watched their papers slide into bankruptcy, while still others are being served by dailies with newsrooms that have shriveled by half.

Why a once-profitable industry suddenly seems as outmoded as America's automakers is a tale that involves arrogance, mistakes, eroding trust and the rise of a digital world in which newspapers feel compelled to give away their content.

"Most of the wounds are self-inflicted," says Phil Bronstein, editor at large of the San Francisco Chronicle, which Hearst Corp. has threatened to close unless major cost savings are achieved or a buyer is found. Rather than engage the audience, he says, "the public was seen as kind of messy and icky and not something you needed to get involved with."

[Zakeet]

Among other general problems listed in the article:

• Newspapers were cash cows when they should have been busy building their brand

• Younger people lack emotional attachment to their newspapers.

• Partisans on the left and the right call the coverage biased.

• Newspapers must (but cannot) find a way to charge for online content.

• Newspapers must go the nonprofit route, relying on donors to raise endowments, much like universities.

• Newspapers are killing sections and closing bureaus, particularly in Washington.

• On Friday, the American Society of Newspaper Editors canceled its convention, saying too many members planned to stay home.

Among other specific problems listed in the article:

• The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press cut home delivery to three days a week.

• The Washington Times dropped its Saturday print edition.

• The Christian Science Monitor is switching to Web-only publication in April.

• USA Today, is forcing staffers to take a week-long furlough.

• Hearst plans to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless it gets a buyer.

• The New York Times has borrowed $250 million from a Mexican financier at 14 percent interest, eliminated its quarterly dividend last month to conserve cash and folded its Metro section into the paper.

• Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has taken a roughly $3 billion write-down on the value of its newspaper unit, which includes the New York Post..

• The Washington Post, whose earnings dropped 77 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, has undergone three rounds of buyouts, killed its Sunday Source section and folded Book World as a separate section.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

"It's a huge loss."

If you say so, Mayor.

[silverleaf]

the partisans (on both sides) who accuse the newspapers of “right wing bias” must be celebrating, for sure.

Just think of all that “right wing” “news” that won’t be distributed...and all those “right wing” editorials that won’t be read....

LOL!!!

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

SOME MISTAKES:

KEYWORDS: biasmeanslayoffs; deadtreemedia; trysellingthetruth;

[behzinlea]

Put stakes in their hearts.

[Cyber Ninja]

I had a greater loss about 20 minutes ago, but I was reading an old Playboy.

[IbJensen]

Think of all the trees that will now be spared.

[scooby321]

People just are not buying what they are selling.

[kjo]

Is it not amazing how these papers will go out of business rather than attend to their bias?

They will die before giving conservatives a fair voice.

Just amazing.

[cookcounty]

"People just are not buying what they are selling."

Even putatively "right-of-center" newspapers, like the Rocky, have their "news: sections jammed with hard left editorialization. Which makes for an unpleasant (to say the least) experience.

No editor that I've heard of, has made any attempt to address this.

[central_va]

This is the best explanation of liberal media bias: If everyone speaks with same accent(liberal) then that becomes the norm. The hick accent(conservative) sticks out and is abnormal.

[Da Coyote]

“...Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recalls getting “a feeling in the pit of my stomach...”

The Looper (apt name in these days of the Obamaloon administration) won’t have anyone to defend - among other things - the multi-million dollar effort to build housing for the homeless, expanding Denver’s sanctuary city status, and keeping all those illegal felons out of jail.

This guy is a looser of Obama-like proportions.

[behzinlea]

People have other options. The days are past when papers could force feed their liberal pablum (disguised as news) to a public that had few other outlets for finding out in depth what is going in the world and their communities. Where I live, the pre-World War II generation makes up a significant portion of the subscription base of the local papers. The dirty little secret is that many of them would not subscribe but for the obituary section. As that generation dies, the papers tend to die with them.

[pointsal]

Did all of the city of Denver’s bills from the convention get paid? How many public dollars got spent?

[MuttTheHoople]

Newspapers are going the way of town criers and home milk delivery.

[hinckley buzzard]

They really are clueless. I especially liked the quotes from "experts" at the J-schools. They live in a comic book world where the Daily Planet rules and Perry White still holds court, and Superman flies outside the window.

The daily paper is the latest buggy whip. It came into being on the strength of having monopoly access to scarce information. Now information is available in excess for free. The future of the newspaper is local and maybe regional news. That's all.

[sweet_diane]

"Younger people lack emotional attachment to their newspapers."

While I would not be considered 'younger' by most, I am by my mom. It absolutely drives her crazy that we don't take the local paper! Instead we get our national and local news from "that damn computer" and by watching the local TV news.

I cracked up just the other day. Mom was, once again, complaining that we don't take the paper and a few minutes later, she was complaining about having to clean newsprint off her A/C thermostat! lol

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Parakeets and Canaries across the nation are very sad indeed. But then, when a subscription to one of these Liberal rags costs from 150 to 180 dollars per year and the obsolete issue winds up in a landfill, it makes sense.

Like the changes in technology that drive public markets, the 8-track tape players wound up replaced by a better form of media. Tradition or not, there are certain laws that determine the trends and this is one of them.

[perez24]

We get the local newspaper for local news, events, and coupons, and the Washington Times for its editorials and Redskins coverage. However, by the time I get home from work it’s all old news. I can surf FR and other sites during the day to get the latest news or listen to the radio.

Newspapers have almost become a waste of time.

[CarolTX]

Another Specific problem:

A few months ago, the Austin American-Statesman stopped publishing the television listings for the week in its Sunday edition. The paper said (in effect) “everybody can find the times of their favorite shows on-line.”

Well, duh...
1. Not everyone has daily internet access.
2. Not everyone 50+ has the internet AT ALL or is comfortable using it. (this is the same demo most likely to be faithful to TV watching and having a newspaper subscription)
3. Speaking of “comfort”, I think it is a royal !$#@* to find daily listings online...something that isn’t skewed to a particular network...something that has show or movie summaries. I also want in a one-sheet format showing MY LOCAL cable channel numbers...something I can print out and have with me by the remote. Impossible.
4. Assume you got your favorite shows tracked...uh, how about new shows, specials, or a movie on TCM? I’ve missed out on so many things lately it makes me furious. What’s the point in having all these cable channels if you can’t find an interesting program without speed-zapping the remote every half-hour?

The TV section was the last reason I kept my subscription. When it went, so did I, and so did a lot of my friends. Suprise! Typical case of ignoring your audience.