Editor and Publisher reports grim news in the mainstream media battle against the growing strength of an internet insurgency ;
The Los Angeles Times reported that daily circulation fell 8% to 775,766. Sunday dropped 6% to 1,172,005The San Francisco Chronicle was down. Daily dropped 5.3% to 373,805 and Sunday fell 7.3% to 432,957.
The New York Times lost 3.5% daily to 1,086,798 and 3.5% on Sunday to 1,623,697. Its sister publication, The Boston Globe, reported decreases in daily circulation, down 6.7% to 386,415 and Sunday, down 9.9% to 587,292.
The Washington Post lost daily circulation, which was down 3.3% to 656,297 while Sunday declined 2.6% to 930,619.
Circulation losses at The Wall Street Journal were average, with daily down 1.9% to 2,043,235. The paper's Weekend Edition, however, saw its circulation fall 6.7% to 1,945,830.
It's a quagmire.
And then, there's the matter of the walking wounded. With staff cuts taking place across the industry, hard questions are being asked.
Of course that you need journalists, but for what?To re-package the same news from the same sources?
To attend the same boring press conferences?
To publish today the same news that our readers knew YESTERDAY?
To produce pages and pages of commodity information with no value added?
However, there's one bright bright spot amidst the carnage;
 | The New York Post today surpassed the Daily News and The Washington Post to become the 5th largest newspaper in America after bucking the national trend and chalking up a whopping 5.1 percent jump in circulation. |
Maybe it's not the medium, after all.
Maybe it's the messengers.
Save a tree, and a buck, and read your news on the net! Giving newspapers your money is a crime! A Globe and Mail subscription is an act of terrorism against white males!
As I sees it all these left leaning papers are catering to an audience who already knows everything there is to know about ... well everything.
They are very busy on their venom blogs, protest marches and gay parades ... who has time to read a paper.
Many industries have lost out in the I.T. boom and because of a lot of new technology, it's just the press's turn to re-configure and restructure.
They hate it because it's all too real for them to deal with .. they prefer the fantasy world that they learned to love from the 60s and 70's where the world was a more perfect place for them.
Welcome back to the future y'all. Real jobs can be rewarding too. Workopolis anyone?
I have noticed that both the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun are getting "thinner" all the time. I wonder if they too are losing circulation?
Mike in White Rock
less papers are being sold but more people simply read their news online. please don't suggest that folks are turning to bloggers for their news though. we all just pilfer what suits our message from our favourite online newspapers anyhow. in fact, kate, you do nothing but cut and paste journalism.
The MSM is just like the Buggy Whip Industry, well past its best before date.
I've never claimed to do "journalism".
Don't you just love it. You can put what you want in the msm but I will vote with my dollar and my click.
The information gap is widening and we are far more better for it.
A great big thank you to the blogosphere.
The truth will set you free
God Bless Canada
Jeff 8:02. Your comment that Kate does nothing but cut and paste certainly does not explain the popularity of this blog or even why you are here. The MSM does not invent news (well, technically they are not supposed to), they send a reporter to a story, write it up, have it edited and then published in a newspaper. It seems to me that is the same as what Kate does. And well enough to keep a ton of people coming through here.
I bought a New York Times in the airport for the comedic value only.
It's all here anyway...
Who cares what paper has to say???
Thinner papers means loss of advertising. Even the Readers Digest is several pages thinner, and if not for the cooking section would be a lot thinner.
Kate says, "I've never claimed to do 'journalism'."
Damned right Kate's never "done journalism"!!
She's a straight shooter and doesn't write or spout crap and lies, like too many MSM journalists do.
Kate: No journalist!
Becuase we birds no longer want to have those damn liberal rags on the bottom of our cages SQUAWK SQUAWK
There is something that is very satisfying about sitting down and reading the newspaper. Back in the Conrad Black Post ownership days I read it in its entirety and thoroughly enjoyed it.
As an Asper vehicle it has become arduously dull. I've given it a fair shot and resubscribed a couple of times only to cancel again within days because of grossly biased coverage by the likes of - in his own words to me "the conservative standard bearer in Ottawa" Don Martin and the flaccid GTA liberal standard bearer Adam Radwanski (my words).
Give me the newspaper that Conrad Black delivered to my door and I will happily get a daily subscription, for with top quality content papers are still enjoyable to read.
I don't know if blogs are replacing papers as much as they are busting them on a daily basis for shoddy reporting, bias, manufactured news, etc - which is resulting in the newspaper buying public questioning the value of the product they once unquestioningly purchased.
"I never claimed to do journalism."
You're wiser, you're more intelligent and you're not a whore.
Take note, Fat Tony of the Red Star.
kates blog is free. she doesn't phone at suppertime trying to sell me a subscription. it doesn't fill up my garbage can .it doesn't have heather mallick trying to tell me a bunch of liberal bullshit. it doesn't have tony burma telling me why he's important. it doesn't have phony polls. damn i could go on for hours but i'm too lazy.
Hey, don't sell me short. I can write crap right up there with the best of 'em.
Hey, don't sell me short. I can write crap right up there with the best of 'em.
Pffft ... not a chance Kate. You don't have the necessary motivation - senate, patronage appointments, etc. Do you really think that you'll ever be able to expense a pack of gum?
Your up against the best my tax dollars can buy. How do I spell delusional ... K A T E.
People don't want to buy papers full of condescending articles written by old farts acting like juveniles? What a surprise...
I loved The National Post in Conrade Black days too, Ward. I still buy the Western Standard and I liked all the Report magazines. Kate's blog is far better than any msm in Canada - she has great news, good links and some very informed posters. This blog saved me from complete despair for my country back in the old Liberano days. Thank-you Kate.
Agree with you Jema. Western Standard is about the only print publication I read from cover to cover. The fact that Steyn graces the back page lends great credence to the Standard. Post would love him back but Steyn has standards (really no pun intended)
These numbers really make one wonder about Canadian publications.
My question is why are these publishers allowing their ships to sink?
No matter what you think of these folks they are not stupid peop;e so what gives?
Jeff, to answer your question, I think part of the answer is the MSM's lockstep left-wing ideology. They'd rather go down in flames than ditch that and become non-ideological, professionally objective journalists. In their inbred world, that left-wing secular theology defines to them who and what they are.
Becoming that would also entail actually doing a lot of work, a lot of the current "stars" wouldn't make it, and they're a basically a lazy bunch to begin with. It's easier to sit on their butts in their offices and play variations on a theme. That's why we see the same left-wing platitudes and articles interpreting facts through the prism of those left-wing platitudes and ideology.
A post-script to my above remark: We do see in the case of the NY Post that making that change, having a non-leftoid paper that's well done can and does pay off. NY Times way down and NY Post way up-not a coincidence, IMO.
You are absolutely right and IRIS Blog has the proof. Conservative papers have been steadily growing:
http://www.iris.org.il/blog/archives/2092-Exclusive-Conservative-Newspaper-Circulations-Surged-As-Liberals-Tanked.html
For example, the Post is now the #1 tabloid in New York after this year's 5% jump and 19% growth over the past four years.
You have to wonder why there are no other cable networks in the US competing with Fox for the fox audience. In such a short time span they have utterly destroyed the competition, and everyone else plays the same old same old.
It has to be ideologically driven and not business driven because not one of the competitors is playing for the same market as Fox.
enough
Headline! Headline! Read all abowd it!
NEW YORK POST MAKES TOAST
of their competition.
The Internet and many Blogs, especially sda, has allowed me to confirmed my life-long suspicion of bias/slant/omission/lies/ in the Media.
During the last four decades I was an avid reader/watcher/listner to;
The National
The Wpg Free Press
Macleans
Time
CNN
As it Happens
G&M
CBC Radio
Wpg Tribune
Peter Mansbridge
Barbara Smith, Barbara Budd
Don Newman
Peter Zowski
Front Page Challenge
The Journal
Ideas
Pierre Burton
David Suzuki
Frances Russel
Jeffery Simpson
and many others.
Their idiotic, Utopian, Gov't idolizing, extreem political correctness has been exposed.
None of the above can hold a candle to;
sda
Kate McMillan
Patrick Moore
Terrance Corcoran
Peter Foster
Tim Ball
Proud To be Canadian
Western Standard
Warren Kinsella (most of the time)
The Media has lost the advantage it has enjoyed since the printing press was invented. The Media Mogals and their thousands of reporters could slant the news to their liking. Stories from anywhere in the world. How could the average citizen ever, easily get the real scoop? Well now we can, instantaneously, from the Millions of Blogers, commenters around the world. And they themselves have to be credible for the same reason.
The world of News has changed forever. Unless, of cource, Maurice Strong and the United Nations go for another power-grab, like Kyoto, and impose www controls to "protect us".
Readers turning from page to Web for news | October 31st, 2006
Circulation is falling at most large-market Canadian newspapers, part of a continent-wide shift that is seeing readers get some of their news from websites instead of the printed word.
The paid-circulation numbers for the six months ended Sept. 30, released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, show just a handful of big Canadian newspapers have bucked the trend to selling lower numbers of papers.
The Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Le Devoir and La Presse in Montreal, Le Journal de Québec, the Toronto Sun, and the Winnipeg Free Press showed paid-circulation increases on weekdays compared with the year-earlier period. A few other papers — the Edmonton Journal and Ottawa Citizen, for example — delivered more papers on Saturday or Sunday, even as their weekday numbers fell. But virtually every other major paper showed overall circulation declines. ...-
jacks newswatch
(Not nuther c/p? Delete)
Give me a multi-million dollar budget and I'll hire a bunch of stringers and field reporters to bring in the news.
Just like CP - AP - Reuters etc.........
OR
You can sign up for these news wire services.
OR
Pony up to gather your own.
The sad thing is that hundred of thousands still are paying for dead trees covered in bullshit.
Give me a multi-million dollar budget and I'll hire a bunch of stringers and field reporters to bring in the news.
Just like CP - AP - Reuters etc.........
OR
You can sign up for these news wire services.
OR
Pony up to gather your own.
The sad thing is that hundreds of thousands still are paying for dead trees covered in bullshit.
uh jEEEEeeeeff!!
notice the big fat 7 digit number at the very bottom of the 'postit note' page? the one approaching the 4 something mark?
start counting now, and by the time you reach the present value, calculate how long it will take to reach its new value.
get it?
luddites vented their wrath at the automated printing press, then when computers and word processors gutted their numbers. Its happening again now, to the entire concept of a printed media.
Marshall MacLuhan pegged it, and I wont bore you with the quote.