Earlier this week, a report issued by the Audit Bureau of Circulations showed U.S. newspaper circulation had hit its lowest levels since 1945. After months of announcements from papers saying they were planning to drastically downsize, the report provides even more concrete evidence that the industry is in dire straights. Many papers, including the San Francisco Chronicle no longer have their own investigative units and some papers like Westchester, N.Y.’s Journal News, which cut 25 percent of their news and advertising employees in August, are reducing their entire newsroom staff. But could it really be these brutal, across-the-board slashings that are contributing to the declining circulation? Maybe people are turning away from print because they can’t find their news. Especially sports news.
As sports conglomerates like ESPN and Comcast continue to expand into local markets, sports journalists are taking a hard hit. On Oct. 13, longtime sports editor Arthur Martone announced he was leaving the Providence Journal for Comcast New England (incidentally, the Journal’s weekday circulation decreased by 18.8 percent in the six-month period ending Sept. 30 compared to the same period last year, according to the recently released Audit report). And the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University just announced a project called Stats Monkey, a robot-esque system that can automatically generate sports stories from online box scores and play-by-plays.
But last month, Phil Meyer, former editor and publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, suggested one way to save newspapers is actually by bringing back sports reporting. “Sports has been an under appreciated asset of newspapers for a long time. Too many editors looked on sports as a necessary evil. My roots are in sports, but all I needed was two World Series titles in Minneapolis to show me the power of sports to sell newspapers and draw online viewers,” he said. “Sports should be the centerpiece of newspaper efforts to rejuvenate themselves.”
With the first game of the World Series set to begin at 7:57 pm Eastern Standard time tonight, maybe those struggling Philadelphia papers can draw on some sports coverage for a temporary revival. If they still have sports reporters. And if the robots don’t beat them to the stories.
U.S. newspaper circulation is on an accelerated free-fall, according to a report released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. In the six-month period starting last April, circulation declined 10.6 percent, representing increasingly devastating news for an industry already ravaged by decreased subscription rates and skittish advertisers. The Bureau reported a 4.6-percent drop for the same period last year.
The last report, issued by the Bureau in April, showed circulation had weathered a 7.1-percent drop over the previous six-month period starting October 2008. Figures for the reports are based on numbers submitted by more than 375 individual papers. The only paper to post an increase in circulation was the Wall Street Journal, though its numbers were buoyed by its Web site, which requires subscriptions that are included in the data. The 0.6-percent increase, however, seemed to be just enough for the Journal to jump past USA Today as the top-circulated newspaper in the U.S.
But there’s still good news: the Newspaper Association of Americareleased a report Oct. 22 indicating newspaper Web sites attracted 74 million unique monthly viewers in the third quarter of 2009. By contrast, the Journal’s print circulation was 2.02 million, and USA Today dropped 17 percent to 1.9 million. The New York Times came in third with a circulation of 927,851.
But maybe the situation isn’t so dire — maybe people are turning to online news because they are becoming more environmentally conscious. When all the paper’s fold, at least more trees will be safe.
Last week, the New York Times launched its new Bay Area edition, beating the Wall Street Journal in the quest to expand into media markets left hanging as local dailies fold.
And as readers continue to turn to the internet and advertisers continue to turn away from printed pages, there will probably be more big-city voids to fill as more papers continue to fold. But what does it matter — apparently all the papers are the same anyway.
On Monday, the New York Times announced they were cutting 100 newsroom jobs, mirroring a harrowing trend that has ransacked the struggling newspaper industry. Between layoffs, furloughs and buyouts, many of the country’s major (and minor) papers have reduced their staff in an effort to combat dwindling ad revenue and tanking subscriptions.
But there is a positive spin — the Times is mailing buyout offers to its employees before it institutes its mass pink-slipping. That’s not really good news, but it’s better than what the Westchester Journal News did in August when it not only abruptly told all 288 employees their jobs were being eliminated, but also added another pinch of panic — not only were employees axed, but they were told they had to reapply for new positions using the paper’s internal Web site.
At least the Boston Globe is safe — the Times said last week it was taking the paper off the market because the Globe had “improved enough,” according to company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Maybe one of the two prospective buyers who submitted preliminary bids for the now off-market Globe could step up and rescue the Times.
Or maybe the Times could save costs by cutting something else. Like maybe the sushi bar in its cafeteria.
Around 11 a.m. Mountain time, a 6-year-old boy apparently took flight above Colorado inside a helium balloon that looked surprisingly like an aluminum-plated UFO. And the nation, perhaps less surprisingly, was transfixed — MSNBC ran a slew of videos, the New York Times ran a constantly updated blog post detailing the saga and cable news channels competed wildly for the afternoon scoop. And Twitter definitely did its part to keep everyone informed — as of 9:30 EST, #balloonboy and related tags (Anne Frank?) were still dominating the trending topics.
At least the aptly named Falcon now has a better alias, even if his family did ultimately find him hiding in their attic in a box.
Now if only Twitter had experienced one of their devastating, productivity-inducing crashes. Then everyone could have their day back.
And oh yeah, the New York Times is no longer looking to sell the Boston Globe. Apparently, the Globe has increased its revenue streams sufficiently enough to allow the Times to forgo the plethora of unattractive offers (okay, there were two).
According to an article on the Times’ Web site, the New York Times Company, which is still looking to sell the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, sent an e-mail to Globe employees around 5 p.m., eliciting across-the-board relief.
The Times is, however, still looking to sell their share of the Boston Red Sox. Getting swept by the Angels in the first round of the playoffs was just too embarrassing.
“Over my dead body will we quit producing the magazine in print.” — Scott Flanders, Chief Executive Officer of Playboy Enterprises Inc.
This bold declaration came just a day after the New York Times reported Condé Nast was ceasing publication of Gourmet magazine and other storied titles such as Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride.
Looks like baking pies and white dresses are as outdated as print media, but it’s nice to know enticing photos will still come hot off the presses.
Maybe Condé Nast should have experimented with naked cookies. Or dressed their brides in bunny ears. Apparently, that’s a better business model.
Rupert Murdoch’s bold attempts to take over the print media market seem to be working, according to a report released today on the Editor & Publisher Web site.
The Wall Street Journal just announced it has become the top-circulating U.S. daily paper, surpassing USA Today in its jump to the number one spot. The Journal reported their circulation revenue rose 10.1 percent, with individual paid circulation posting a modest year-over year increase of 0.6 percent.
That’s a lot better than the projected 17 percent decrease in circulation during the same time period for the slipping USA Today, due in part to the Marriott hotel chain’s April decision to stop delivering newspapers free to its guests. In a move launched June 1, hotel visitors must now specifically request to have USA Today, the Journal or local papers delivered— and they aren’t choosing USA Today. That is, if they request a paper at all, since Marriott reported 25 percent of guests never read their papers anyway.
Despite these projections, the official circulation figures for the nation’s newspapers won’t be released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations until Oct. 26, so this could all just be inflated speculation.
But Murdoch seems unfazed. Apparently, the Journal is already celebrating their mass media success: a memo was sent to all staffers earlier today with the subject line “A Toast to our Success – Today at the Hub @ 5:00 pm.”
Could this mean Murdoch may reconsider his plans to have the Journal charge for mobile content? Probably not. But maybe he’ll consider sending a nice thank-you note and a box of truffles to the Marriott hotel chain with his soon-to-be generated multi-platform pay wall revenue.
It only took three months, but the Claremont Eagle-Times is back on New Hampshire newsstands.
Nearly two months ago, a Pennsylvania family-owned publishing company submitted a bid for the tiny-town paper, offering to pay a fraction of the nearly $4.6 million in debt the Times had managed to accrue. It looked promising, especially since the publishing company, Sample News Group, was willing to honor the nearly 8,000 existing subscriptions. But then there were a bunch of mishaps (objections from the U.S. Trustee’s office, possible lost deposits, inability to secure added bonuses including printing equipment, two vans and a telephone system), and the Times was forced to wait. A jumpstart local paper called the Compass, which scrambled to print its first edition a mere two weeks after the Times folded, looked like it would fill the void permanently.
But apparently, the paper reemerged from bankruptcy court on Monday to print its first edition since July 10. And though 62 employees were laid off when the paper folded, Sample News rehired 20 of them.
Not bad. Even if only a third got their jobs back, at least the lucky rehires weren’t forced to reapply for their jobs.
In August, LedeObserver rediscovered a national ad campaign launched by the Newspaper Association of America to promote reading and literacy and revive print. Among others, Meryl Streep and LL Cool J appeared in these TV commercials unfolding front pages and championing their love for news.
And, apparently, Jon Bon Jovi liked print, too — LedeObserver stumbled upon the rockstar in another one of these ads. But does this mean newspapers are livin’ on a prayer?
An e-mail sent by the news editor on Sunday night to student editors for UWIRE — the wire service supported by student journalists at more than 800 colleges and universities nationwide — read:
I have been told that UWIRE is temporarily suspending operations. I don’t know a lot of specifics, but I’ve been told that UWIRE will likely be back in some form in a relatively short amount of time.
The situation is still hazy, but the Web site, which also distributes content to professional news outlets such as CNN, Fox News and Yahoo, is apparently in a “transitional period,” according to the site’s general manager. In his e-mail, Tom Orr wrote:
We are currently in a transitional period, and are doing everything in our power to make sure that we can live up to our commitments.
None of the nine student editors (full disclosure: Observer is one of them) have received paychecks for the last pay period, which they were told would be cut on Sept. 25.
Newspapers are folding, and it looks like news Web sites are getting 404′d. But taking it out on student editors who were payed $8 an hour? That is so old media. At least Gannett allowed their employees at Westchester’s Journal News in New York to reapply for their jobs when their paper was transitioning.
Despite the overwhelmingly undeniable shift to new media outlets — news aggregators like Huffington Post, Twitter, blogs — offering free newspaper subscriptions might be enough to entice young readers back to print. At least in France.
The French government announced recently it has decided to give away one-day-a-week subscriptions free of charge starting next month to every 18- to 24-year old in the country in an effort to promote “newspaper reading and civic participation.” Publishers will provide their papers for free while the government pays for their distribution.
But a study unveiled at the World Young Reader Conference, which occurred in Prague last week, revealed that many young readers are not interested in traditional news content, even online. Instead, they want stories to be presented in the “simplest, most visually enticing manner,” with bold headlines and snappy synopses. How, then, do these French newspapers expect to generate prolonged interest?
But there is some hope for the government’s plan: a spokeswoman for Ouest France, the country’s largest general interest newspaper, said at the same conference the number of regular readers in the target demographic had increased by 22,000 in three years, with 12 percent re-subscribing after their own free-subscription promotion ended.
Then again, the French press is among the least profitable print industries in Europe, so any increase in subscriptions as a result of the government incentive could be billed as a success if it means some kind of fête. Especially since this year is supposed to have a particularly strong Beaujolais Nouveau.
On Monday, the New York Times 
Around 11 a.m. Mountain time, a 6-year-old boy apparently 
And oh yeah, the 
“Over my dead body will we quit producing the magazine in print.” — Scott Flanders, Chief Executive Officer of Playboy Enterprises Inc.
That’s a lot better than the 
It only took three months, but the Claremont Eagle-Times is back on New Hampshire newsstands. 
An e-mail sent by the news editor on Sunday night to student editors for 
