Good Night and Good Luck
The print division of the Fourth Estate is in a terminal decline. There will be survivors, but the once-mighty newspaper landscape of America’s largest cities is being forever changed.
Bankruptcies of major newspapers in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia have signaled a new round of culling. Some are converting to online-only efforts such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, while others such as the Los Angeles Times slash their workforces faster than the U.S. automotive industry.
There are few bright spots. USA Today increased circulation by 69 percent from 1990 through September 2008 with over 2.3 million papers sold and the Wall Street Journal weighed in with a 6.6 percent gain. Sun-belt cities are treading water, but even Phoenix has felt the pinch with the Arizona Republic’s format shrunken into pale image of its former self.
Changing consumer habits are at the core of the malaise. As consumers turn to the Internet and cable for news, advertisers have shifted funds away from traditional newspapers. There has been a 33-percent advertising revenue decline since 2005, and it’s estimated that the economic slide will chill ad receipts another 21 percent further in 2009.
The Detroit Free Press and Philadelphia Enquirer now rank below the Cleveland Plain Dealer in circulation (298,243, 300,674, and 305,529 respectively), while significant urban centers such as Denver, Seattle, Miami, and Atlanta don’t even make the circulation top twenty.
With more writers and editors out of work than ever before, it’s said you have enough high-quality, idled staff for running five Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers. More importantly, newspaper workforce reductions will harm the volume of primary news and investigative reporting taken for granted in the U.S. for decades. How many future Woodward and Bernsteins will we lose? Who will corrupt politicians and powerful corporations fear with an enfeebled press? The impact on governance and transparency will be severe. Scary times indeed.
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