WORDS AND PICTURES

Advertising Age reported back in 2013 that adult newspaper readership had fallen by 20 percent since 2001. Among major U.S. cities, Pittsburgh had the most adults—51 percent—claiming to still read a daily print newspaper; Atlanta ranked last with only 23 percent. In general, the South and Southwest had adult readership numbers around 25 percent, with the Northeast and Upper Midwest around 45 to 50 percent.1

Despite these numbers, investing guru Warren Buffett has been buying newspapers—more than sixty of them in 2012 and 2013—just as many traditional print companies, looking at the decline in readers, are trying to unload their papers. For example, in 2013, the Tribune Company—owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, two of the largest U.S. newspapers—considered selling the papers shortly after spending $2.7 billion to buy nineteen local TV stations (adding to the twenty-three it already owned), a purchase the New York Times described as “giving it one of the largest groups of local [TV] affiliates in the United States.”2 In 2014, Tribune did spin off its newspapers as a separate company called Tribune Publishing (with a $275 million debt load). In other words, Tribune executives today have bet that good old TV is the way to go—and they believe, as do other giant media companies like News Corp. and Time Warner, that splitting newspapers from TV interests may be the best move. Although TV viewing has declined dramatically in the smartphone and online era, broadcast programs still command the largest audiences. Buying TV stations gives the Tribune Company (now rid of its newspapers) access to retransmission fees (which cable companies now pay local broadcasters and national networks, mostly for traditional prime-time programs on ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC), as well as a chunk of the lucrative political ad money that comes around to certain swing states every two years during election season.3 Although digital advertising has overtaken newspapers in annual U.S. ad revenue, TV and cable still led all media in 2013, grabbing almost 39 percent of U.S. ad revenue. Digital advertising, including mobile phones, accounted for 25 percent of ad spending, while newspapers—for decades the U.S. ad leader—had just over a 10 percent share. Looking ahead, forecasters see newspaper advertising’s share declining further, to just 7.5 percent by 2017.4

So against the backdrop of an uncertain digital future, what will happen to newspapers—and why is Warren Buffett buying them? While Buffett and his top executives have long held that “circulation, advertising and profits” in the newspaper business would decline in the digital age, they also think that news in general is still “good business.” In 2013, Buffett argued, “I believe that papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly-bound communities . . . will remain viable for a long time.”5

Just as the music and radio industries have adapted and survived over the years, newspapers will survive, too—probably at first by delivering a print version two or three days a week or moving to digital smartphone and tablet formats, where that advertising revenue is indeed growing. The New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2012 and 2013, respectively, reduced home delivery of their papers to just three days a week, while other newspapers, like the Christian Science Monitor and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have decided to go online only. Warren Buffett, a former newspaper boy, believes that in the age of the Internet, people want reliable information and good stories more than ever. In the end, his faith in the medium reminds us that media businesses are ultimately about telling and selling stories—regardless of format.

DESPITE THEIR CURRENT PREDICAMENTS, newspapers and their online offspring play many roles in contemporary culture. As chroniclers of daily life, newspapers both inform and entertain. By reporting on scientific, technological, and medical issues, newspapers disseminate specialized knowledge to the public. In reviews of films, concerts, and plays, they shape cultural trends. Opinion pages trigger public debates and offer differing points of view. Columnists provide everything from advice on raising children to opinions on the U.S. role as an economic and military superpower. Newspapers help readers make choices about everything from what kind of food to eat to what kinds of leaders to elect.

Although newspapers have played a central role in daily life, in today’s digital age the industry is losing both papers and readers. Newspapers have lost their near monopoly on classified advertising, much of which has shifted to free Web sites like craigslist and eBay. According to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), in 2013 total newspaper ad revenues totaled more than $38 billion, a decline of 2.6 percent from 2012, when revenues fell 6 percent. Of that total, $24 billion came from ads across all platforms, $11 billion came from circulation, and $3.15 billion came from “other sources.” In 2012, online ads accounted for about $3.4 billion in total revenue, while print advertising brought in more than $18.6 billion in ad revenue for the nation’s papers—less than half of the ad money generated as recently as 2006. In 2013, online advertising rose just slightly—1.5 percent to $3.42 billion in total revenue. The NAA reported in 2013 that circulation revenue for U.S. newspapers recorded a second straight year of growth, rising 3.7 percent to $10.87 billion, according to NAA data (the first such growth since 2003). These two years of circulation growth provided a spark of hope in a time when the loss of papers, readers, advertising, and investor confidence raised concerns in a nation where daily news has historically functioned to “speak truth to power” by holding elected officials responsible and acting as a watchdog for democratic life.6

In this chapter, we examine the cultural, social, and economic impact of newspapers. We will:

As you read this chapter, think about your own early experiences with newspapers and the impact they have had on you and your family. Did you read certain sections of the paper, like sports or comics? What do you remember from your childhood about your parents’ reading habits? What are your own newspaper reading habits today? How often do you actually hold a newspaper? How often do you get your news online? For more questions to help you think through the role of newspapers in our lives, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.