The new issue of American Journalism Review asks the question of whether making Associated Press content (which was originally created for the newspapers that were part of the AP collective) available to Internet portals was A Costly Mistake?
I didn’t need to read the article to know the answer: Duh.
But the piece does a good job of explaining why it seemed reasonable at the time to make the content available, and that no one was able to foresee the present time, when readers, quite naturally, wonder why they need to read their local paper, when they’re getting national, international, sports and entertainment news for free, well, everywhere, via the Associated Press (and, to a lesser extent, Reuters and Agence France-Presse , better known as AFP).
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I’d heard it before that when the job market is down, grad school applications go up. With the double-whammy of an already reeling newspaper (and TV and radio news) industry and a general down economy, I guess it’s no surprise that j-school applications are way, way up:
The Pew Research Center estimates 5,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2008. Since 2001, more than 10,000 newspaper journalists have lost work, leaving the total count of those still employed at 47,000 nationwide. It’s getting worse, fast. Erica Smith, who runs the online layoff tracker Paper Cuts, counts nearly 7,500 newsroom jobs lost so far this year.
Yet punishing times for journalism have been an unlikely boon for journalism schools. Would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins hiding out from the bad economy or learning new skills to compete stormed the admissions offices of top-tier programs last fall. Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains. “I’m amazed that enrollment continues to be so healthy,” says Associate Professor Stephen Solomon at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Costs are up too. The average price for graduate school and living expenses has reached $31,000 per year. This despite earnings for journalists with a graduate degree averaging just $40,000 in 2007 ($10,000 more than for those with just bachelor’s degrees).
“I’ve never met a single person in 35 years who went into journalism out of pure economic reason,” explains Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. “It doesn’t make us recession-proof, but it makes us less recession responsive.”
What are all these people going to do for a living? Some may actually get jobs in journalism. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2016 the number of positions for entry-level reporters and news anchors will increase 2%, while those for experienced writers and editors will grow 10%. Expect trade publications, freelance work and digital media to supply the bulk of the jobs.
I choose to blame the crush of applications for me getting turned down by Columbia and not my admittedly appalling undergrad grades. (But hey, it was more than 15 years ago! Look, Columbia, awards!)
Naturally, the guys on TWiT seemed to think this was about bloggers wanting to go to j-school. When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As the drumbeat of bad news beats on, with the very real possibility that San Francisco will be without a major daily metro to call its own soon, Time Magazine asks the musical question What Happens When a Town Loses Its Newspaper? (Spoiler alert: It’s bad news.)
The study is very small in scope, since the Post had a total of only 27,000 subscribers in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. And it measures only the outcomes in northern Kentucky, since Ohio has not had municipal elections since the Post’s closure. But even with those limitations, a few trends seemed to emerge: in towns the Post regularly covered, voter turnout dropped, fewer people ran for office and more incumbents were reelected. That is, when there were fewer stories about a given town, its inhabitants seemed to care less about how they’re being governed.
It’s not a particularly big study, to put it mildly, but there will likely be ample opportunity to get more data later this year.
The study’s conclusions match up with my personal observations of what happens when local politics aren’t covered extensively.
My dad sent me this link.
Ever since the Rocky Mountain News went under, everyone I talk to is nervous about my job. Even when I’m talking to someone at the Hesperia Unified School District who’s gotten a pink slip, they still want to ask how the Star is doing. For the record, it’s doing better than most papers in the country. Lean and mean is a virtue in times like these.
1. The Philadelphia Daily News. The smaller of the two papers owned by The Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which recently filed for bankruptcy. The parent company says it will make money this year, but with newspaper advertising still falling sharply, the city cannot support two papers and the Daily News has a daily circulation of only about 100,000. The tabloid has a small staff, most of whom could probably stay on at Philly.com, the web operation for both of the city dailies.
2. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has filed for Chapter 11. The paper may not make money this year even without the costs of debt coverage. The company said it made $26 million last year, about half of what it made in 2007. The odds are that the Star Tribune will lose money this year if its ad revenue drops another 20%. There is no point for creditors to keep the paper open if it cannot generate cash. It could become an all-digital property, but supporting a daily circulation of over 300,000 is too much of a burden. It could survive if its rival the St. Paul Pioneer Press folds. A grim race.
3. The Miami Herald, which has a daily circulation of about 220,000. It is owned by McClatchy, a publicly traded company which could be the next chain to go into Chapter 11. The Herald has been on the market since December, and but no serious bidders have emerged. Newspaper advertising has been especially hard hit in Florida because of the tremendous loss in real estate advertising. The online version of the paper is already well-read in the Miami area and Latin America and the Caribbean. The Herald has strong competition north of it in Fort Lauderdale. There is a very small chance it could merge with the Sun-Sentinel, but it is more likely that the Herald will go online-only with two editions, one for English-speaking readers and one for Spanish.
4. The Detroit News is one of two daily papers in the big American city badly hit by the economic downturn. It is unlikely that it can merge with the larger Detroit Free Press which is owned by Gannett. It is hard to see what would be in it for Gannett. With the fortunes of Detroit getting worse each day, cutting back the number of days that the paper is delivered will not save enough money to keep the paper open.
5. The Boston Globe is, based on several accounts, losing $1 million a week. One investment bank recently said that the paper is only worth $20 million. The paper is the flagship of what the Globe’s parent, The New York Times, calls the New England Media Group. NYT has substantial financial problems of its own. Last year, ad revenue for the New England properties was down 18%. That is likely to continue or get worse this year. Supporting larger losses at the Globe will become nearly impossible. Boston.com, the online site that includes the digital aspects of the Globe, will probably be all that will be left of the operation.
6. The San Francisco Chronicle. Parent company Hearst has already set a deadline for shutting the paper if it cannot make tremendous cost cuts. The Chronicle lost as much as $70 million last year. Even if the company could lower its costs, the northern California economy is in bad shape. The online version of the paper could be the only version by the middle of the 2009.
7. The Chicago Sun Times is the smaller of two newspapers in the city. Its parent company, Sun-Times Media Group trades for $.03 a share. Davidson Kempner, a large shareholder in the firm, has dumped the CEO and most of the board. The paper has no chance of competing with The Chicago Tribune.
8. NY Daily News is one of several large papers fighting for circulation and advertising in the New York City area. Unlike The New York Times, New York Post, Newsday, and Newark Star Ledger, the Daily News is not owned by a larger organization. Real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman owns the paper. Based on figures from other big dailies it could easily lose $60 million or $70 million and has no chance of recovering from that level
9. The Fort Worth Star Telegram is another one of the big dailies that competes with a larger paper in a neighboring market – Dallas. The parent of The Dallas Morning News, Belo, is arguably a stronger company that the Star Telegram’s parent, McClatchy. The Morning News has a circulation of about 350,000 and the Star Telegram has just over 200,000. The Star Telegram will have to shut down or become an edition of its rival. Putting them together would save tens of millions of dollars a year.
10. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is in one of the economically weakest markets in the country. Its parent, Advance Publications, has already threatened to close its paper in Newark. Employees gave up enough in terms of concessions to keep the paper open. Advance, owned by the Newhouse family, is carrying the burden of its paper plus Conde Nast, its magazine group which is losing advertising revenue. The Plain Dealer will be shut or go digital by the end of next year.
This will be heresy to some, but I’m not particularly wedded to the idea of news-on-paper, so if any of these papers can deliver comparable news and become healthy, profitable concerns by eliminating paper, it’s not a big deal to me (although I hope said companies spin off their printing press into a separate enterprise that then flourishes on its own, once it can set whatever rates it needs to). I’m skeptical that many papers can make this transition in any sort of timely fashion, however.
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