The US Newspaper Industry: Extinction Event
April 7, 2020
I am in rural Kentucky because of a newspaper. I left the wonderful world of suburban Washington, DC, to live near a mine drainage system. Oh, sure, I worked at a diversified newspaper committed to electronic publishing, but a mine run off is a mine run off.
I read “Local Newspapers Are Facing Their Own Coronavirus Crisis.”
I spotted an interesting statement about the newspaper industry in the US:
Researchers have long worried that the next recession – which economists say is already upon us — “could be an extinction-level event for newspapers,” said Penelope Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the news industry.
Extinction event. Interesting phrase. The write up offered some factoids:
- More than 2,100 cities and tows have lost a newspaper (mostly weeklies) in the last 15 years
- Newsroom employment has shrunk by 50 percent since 2004
- Twenty global news publishers expect a median 23% decline in 2020 ad sales
- Lee Enterprises announced salary reductions and furloughs
- The Tampa Bay Times, owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, cut five days of its print edition and announced furloughs
- C&G Newspapers, which publishes 19 weekly newspapers near Detroit, suspended print publication
What snagged my attention was the last paragraph in the article:
Editor, publisher and owner Louis Fortis is keeping the website operating and promises to resume printing at some point, in some form. Yet he’s feeling the same uncertainty as millions of other Americans. “I’m very disappointed,” he said. “On the other hand, you have to look at the big picture. People are dying.”
Interesting. On one hand the person is disappointed. On the other hand, people are dying.
What’s this mean? Gnostic puzzles must be eyeball magnets.
Historical fact: The Courier Journal’s Barry Bingham Jr. understood the change electronic publishing would have in the late 1970s. How did that work out?
Gannett, announced 15-day furloughs and pay cuts for many employees.
Gannett purchased the Courier Journal in the late 1980s.
How did that work out? Electronic information is not a solution. Flowing digits work like a high pressure water stream in the ill fated FlowTex system; that is, high pressure water directed at an object erodes that object, blasting it into tiny particles in some cases. Where once an edifice stood, only fragments remain.
Print newspapers are going to fall over. Money bandages won’t work.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2020
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