No more news that's fit to print? ..... The downfall of the newspaper biz accelerates.....

[marmar]

Newspaper Industry’s Collapse Hastens; Shutdowns Loom (Update3)
By Greg Bensinger


Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The collapse of the U.S. newspaper industry is accelerating as a deepening plunge in advertising forces publishers to consider curtailing print editions or shutting down altogether.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will shut down or appear only on the Internet if its parent company can’t find a buyer for it by March. The Tucson Citizen in Arizona will close if it can’t be sold. Denver’s Rocky Mountain News is up for sale, and Detroit’s two dailies cut their delivery schedule to three days a week.

“There’s going to be a lot of papers giving up days of the week that they publish editions and an acceleration of movement from print to digital publishing,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst at media consultant Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California.

New York Times Co., Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co., which altogether own about 135 dailies, posted publishing ad revenue declines of more than 13 percent in 2008 and anticipate further drops this year. The publishers are selling assets and cutting at least 5,000 jobs amid the worst recession in more than 70 years.

“There really isn’t much of a silver lining to look to for advertising sales this year,” said Jon Swallen, an analyst with TNS Media Intelligence in New York.

About 60 percent of ad revenue comes from retail, automotive, financial services and real estate marketers, among the hardest-hit industries during the U.S. recession, he said. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a5gjwrWQK5Vs&refer=home

[sakabatou]

1. And so becomes the electronic newspaper.

[rvablue]

2. The ramifications of this are over and above anything else this country has experienced

in a long, long time.

If the American newspapers dies -- which it looks like will happen -- democracy as we know it is dead.

[Terry in Austin]

3. How do you figure?

"The press" will most likely continue to exist, although in newer and more diverse forms. We're taking part in one right now, in fact.

[rvablue]

4. Sorry DU is basically a compilation of opinion....there is 1% to none of investigation going on here

It's a sounding board.


Just look at Watergate and how much time, money, man power and expertise went into to breaking that story.....there is NOTHING on the Internet yet that can rival a team of seasoned print journalists.

We'll see, though. Those people are going to have to go somewhere, but they also have to pay the mortgage.

But, sorry, DU has nothing, zilcho, nada to do with journalism -- not in it's present form anyway.

[Loge23]

5. The Age of Stupid

How pathetic that a free people would allow newspapers to go extinct.
This is just another casualty of the Age of Stupid, which we are firmly in the midst of.

I can recall when USA Today started. Many people were outraged at that! Many people saw USA Today as a sure sign of the erosion of the American IQ. I suppose now even USA Today is in trouble.

I still read three a day, although I'm about to drop one of my long-time favorites, the Palm Beach Post. The Post is a solidly liberal paper that was just filled with good reporting in all of the important sections: national, local, and sports. Not anymore, I'm afraid. They laid off most of their staff and the paper is now a shell of it's former self. The editorial page, thankfully, has remained correct!

Don't even get me started on the nightly television "news"! The major network's national news shows are produced by idiots, hosted by idiots, and aim for a content palpable for idiots. I stopped watching long ago, but still occasionally wander into a room with it on - stop to watch - and immediately become outraged! I'm getting better, they say.

None of this is meant to suggest that I have a superior intelligence to anyone - which anyone who knows me would undoubtedly agree. But somewhere, somehow, the country went stupid. The evidence of this? It's in the news.