This has been one of those things that was pretty obviously going to happen inevitably sooner or later, and has been anticipated ever since the Internet was invented. But I was only confronted with tangible, stark evidence of the process today.
I live in Tampa, FL. The city newspaper, the Tampa Tribune, could charitably be described as “not very good,” and I’ve always subscribed to its competitor from across the bay, the St. Pete Times. But it was still a surprise when a co-worker brought a paper into the breakroom at work today, and there were only two sections. “Where’s the rest of the paper?” the cry rang out. Gone with the wind, it seems.
Apparently the Tribune has reduced the daily paper’s size drastically, while simultaneously doubling the price. Now there’s only “World” and “Sports,” with the other previously existing sections sort of shoehorned in where possible. I guess this is the beginning of the final convulsions. Possibly this particular change is more immediately the result of the Tribune’s specific management situation; but I seem to recall reading about the St. Pete Times faced with similar dire straits, though not quite so extreme as of yet.
There’s an air of finality about this development, as if the newspaper had suffered a massively debilitating stroke. To me it feels a bit like it did when they stopped making Oldsmobiles. I have difficulty when previously omnipresent features of my life suddenly stop existing. It rattles me.
As long as I eat breakfast in my kitchen table I will have a desire for a newspaper. I keep hearing that people are getting their news online now but nothing beats a paper in one hand and a fork or spoon in the other.
But I must be a dying breed, as appears to be the daily newspaper.
This seems like a strange approach. There’s no reason to expect that a small local paper will ever do national or international news as well as the elite newspapers, which are now easily accessible to everyone (and even if you like a physical newspaper, the NY Times is delivered in many places now). I would think that a local paper’s best strategy would be to emphasize the local news that other outlets don’t provide.
On a related note, it’s my understanding that local papers aren’t just threatened by online news, but also by free classified advertising sites like Craigslist, which are taking away the local papers’ classified ad revenue, which used to be substantial.
Am I the only one that never buys newspapers anymore except on Sunday and only for the coupons? Last time I bought it I didn’t even read the paper. I glanced through a few pages but I had already read all the news online. I’ve even stopped reading the comics after discovering the wonderful world of online comics.
Respectfully, I’ll have to disagree with you. Keep the presses, no circulation, but send copies of newspapers to libraries. Before you respond, remember that this condition would last until we decide on whether to replace libraries.
Our papers just keep getting smaller and smaller, with less and less news. If I want details about a regional, national or world story, I must go online anyway to look up more stuff, on the newspaper’s own website.
if it wasn’t for local coverage I’d have bagged our local paper long ago. In fact we tried to do just that, but lost track of who died and how the local HS teams were doing. So we resubscribed.
Yeah, it’s been going on for some time. Regretfully. I’m also a person who would rather have the book in my hand to read. Savor. Yeah, I know I might be able to read it online for free. But, I’ll pay the money to hold it.
The local Akron Beacon Journal, which lost almost all of it’s good people to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is a shell. And they raised the price to 75 cents. Outrageous, but I still buy it. And now the Plain Dealer is in the death throes, laying off some of the people they hired from Akron. And the NY Times is dying.
Hell, the Chicago Reader succumbed to this in the last 2 years, and now Creative Loafing is going under. The big fish always ate the smaller fish, but now the big fish are dying off too.
The Tribune has a daily circulation almost 100,000 less than the Times. The Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes and covers Tampa far better than the Tribune covers St. Petersburg. The Tribune is suffering from second-paper syndrome.
Newspapers aren’t dead yet, but there seems to be only enough market for one daily paper in a given area.
I recently subscribed after not subscribing or reading a physical daily newspaper for a couple of years. I don’t really read it for the news. Work has gotten really nasty with their internet blocking, so I’ll keep the crosswords to do during my interminable time on hold while at work. I’ll keep the sports section on the living room table if I don’t want to get online to look up something.
But, I really don’t expect the daily newspaper to be around in 10 years. Sure, there will be a free paper copy newspaper But, it will cover primarily restaurants/bars/movies and other things which are supported by advertising. There will still be a population which doesn’t get online even in 10 years.
It will be a sad day when newspapers no longer exist. What will I take with me to read in the bathroom? What will I roll up to smack my dogs on the nose when they poop inside? What will I use to shield my head from the rain as I run from my car to my office? What will I use for kindling when I want to start a fire on those cold winter nights?
There used to be/sort of still are 2 papers here. The Las Vegas Review-Journal (mornings, conservative) and the Las Vegas Sun (afternoons, liberal). Eventually they entered into a revenue sharing/printing agreement, and now the Sun is a 6-8 page section bundled into the RJ. They still have a separate staff of reporters, columnists, and editors for each paper. But I miss my afternoon friend showing up at 4pm every day, ready to inform me about events that the morning paper had to miss because of their printing deadline.
I’ve subscribed to newspapers since I was 13 years old. I usually read a couple each day. I also read news online, but it isn’t the same.
The fact is that producing tens of thousands of copies of a newspaper every day is a huge expense, and advertisers are no longer willing to foot (enough of) the bill. Newspapers have to cut costs to stay alive. More cuts means fewer readers, which means less response to ads, which means reduced ad revenue, and down it goes.
I work at a newspaper and have at least 6 years to go before I can retire. Thank og the owner of my paper is a privately held company, at least we haven’t gone the way of Knight Ridder and so many other chains. But I’m afraid I’m going to be out there at 62 trying to find meaningful work. Good luck with that.
Roddy
I read the L.A. times at lunch. The paper is a shadow of what it once was. It’s got ads on the front pages of sections, the section banner is cartoonish and makes it difficult to differentiate it from an advertisement. I’ll continue to read it for years, as it’s a damn hard habit to break. I probably get most of my news online, but anytime I’m traveling, I always grab the local newspaper. I’ll miss them when they are gone.
This is a funny outlook. There are so many things that are ‘wastes’ of trees and other resources. Trees can also be replaced unlike some of the other things we consume.
I like reading my newspaper while on the bus to work or while in work at lunch breaks. I don’t think electronic devices (as yet) are a suitable replacement. If I get soup on my newspaper big whoop, soup on my €300 device, oh shit.
You know, I’m working on a pathfinder for Spanish speaking library patrons to online newspapers, since we can’t afford obviously to get a paper from everywhere our Hispanic patrons are from, and holy crap does Latin America have awesome newspapers! Buenos Aires alone has a metric asston of them, all major papers, all in healthy competition. It’s really cool, only I can’t read them.
There’s definitely demand for the newspapers at the public library, at any rate - trust me, it’s all I do on Sunday. I do wish our local rag would just trash the A section and make the whole thing local news.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution isn’t exactly a great paper, but I’d miss it. I guess I could probably get all the same content with an online subscription, but I like having the paper at my breakfast table. Reading on a screen just isn’t the same.