Absolutes are tricky, but there's certainly no question that newspapers have declined precipitously in quantity. I feel they've declined precipitously in quality, too, and I'd lump the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in there.
I'm quite worried, because it seems to me the media that are prospering are those dedicated to telling a paticular interest group what it wants to hear, rather than providing oversight on our society & government. Without a functioning "fourth branch", I really don't see this American experiment lasting much longer in any recognizable form.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
We still have a local (county) paper but they did lay off a lot of folks recently. They used to do their own printing and instead of investing $1-2million on a new press decided to sublet it and downsize.
So in this 'new media' age where will we get our news? TV? At least they have a revenue source. I often look up news on my paper's website, but if the paper folds I'd expect the website to also.
Are ANY websites making money off advertising? Or subscriptions (for news?)
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I can see just from my own experience how this might occur. For the last several years, I've gotten the bulk of my news from World Net Daily online. We have a couple of county papers and still are fortunate to have a local city paper, the only paper I read now. It's refreshing to read a paper that actually reports the news as it is, without an attempt to influence one's opinion.
There has been a perception that the major papers have a political agenda that colors their news, and that is the reason for the decline. I'm not sure that is the case. No doubt they do have an ideological bent, but I think the decline is due to the plethora of alternative news sources.
I will probably continue to get the bulk of my news online. Your question of any websites making money is well taken. Sometimes WND issues a call for donations, so it can't be very lucrative. I can see where subscriptions might be a viable way to go.
__________________ Dennis
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
In my opinion, this is not a shift in public appetite for news but a business model change problem. Clearly, from the stats, people still want news. The problem is that the simple business model of using ad revenue to pay for very general editorial content with the cover charge paying for distribution is no longer working.
Advertisers want to be able to target -- it delivers a superior return if they can focus on an audience who is receptive to their message. Thus any ad-supported business is at risk from a competitor who can offer better targeting for advertisers.
There are now more targeted ad channels, and online ads continue to show particular effectiveness (just look at Google's quarterly accounts!) Thus ad rates and circulation decline for generalist newspapers, and that quickly becomes a negative reinforcement loop: lower circulation means less ad revenue, which means less editorial, which is less appealing to readers, which leads to lower circulation.
I believe what we are also seeing is a fracturing of the "general readership" into specialist categories -- which has benefits for both the readers and the advertisers. Newspapers are by nature broad and general in their coverage. Yet specialist editorial has grown considerably in the same time period: there are now thousands more magazines focused on particular areas of interest. Thus "print" is not dead: it has, in fact, gotten bigger. What has declined are generalist newspapers.
Specialist editorial newspapers have also done well -- The Economist and the Wall Street Journal, for example. In a different form of specialization in London, newspapers designed to be read by bored commuters on the train home and then discarded have flourished. I call them "casual newspapers" -- the editorial content is light: just enough for the ride home, and then they're discarded. There are now at least two to three of these on offer every workday evening outside London tube stations.
So, print is not dead -- it's just becoming more specialized.
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