David Lauder may not realize but his piece in today’s Tribune illustrates nicely why newspapers are folding. Here’s a snippet from his piece:
Some 136 newspapers in the United States have closed in the past year, news deserts are expanding and web traffic to the nation’s top newspapers has dropped markedly this decade, according to a report issued Monday that struggles to find hope for the beleaguered news industry.
struggles to find hope for the beleaguered news industry.While entrepreneurs are launching digital news sites, often backed by philanthropies, they haven’t sprouted at a rate that makes up for the losses, the report from Northwestern University said. the report from Northwestern University said.
Taking a step back for an even broader look at the industry is even more troubling. Since 2005, the numbers of newspapers published in the United States has dropped from 7,325 in 2005 to 4,490 now, said the Medill State of Local News report. Daily newspaper circulation that averaged between 50 and 60 million people at the turn of the century now stands at just over 15 million.
An estimated 365,460 people worked at newspapers in 2005, and now that number is down to 91,550, the report said. Two decades ago, 71% of journalists worked at newspapers and now just 29% of the nearly 42,000 working journalists are at newspapers.
He’s just regurgitating Northwestern’s press release. There is no reporting here and precious little value-added.
What use are newspapers that are just passing along press releases or rephrased articles from wire services? The “news deserts” he laments are being created have been mirages for years.
And you don’t need a Medill School of Journalism to teach repeating press releases and adding opinion. It can be done by ChatGPT.
Local papers have always run pieces by national writers or done some of the press release stuff, especially on non-controversial stuff without time urgency. Now that circulation numbers are down so badly papers have few actual writers. If they limit their published paper to just stuff done by their own writers you are going to get just 2 or 3 pages. They need this kind of stuff to pad things so it looks like people are getting something larger than a menu. I think its a real loss but dont see it changing soon.
Steve
Why Newspapers Are Closing
Most people don’t want actual reporting, which often entails uncomfortable truths and challenging preconceptions, preferring comforting untruths and confirmation of prejudices.