Introduction

8
Newspapers

The Rise and Decline of Modern Journalism

“We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.”

ARTHUR SULZBERGER, NEW YORK TIMES PUBLISHER, 2010

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278 The Evolution of American Newspapers

284 Competing Models of Modern Print Journalism

291 The Business and Ownership of Newspapers

301 Challenges Facing Newspapers Today

308 Newspapers and Democracy

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Advertising Age reported 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), “giving it one of the largest groups of local [TV] affiliates in the United States.”2

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In other words, Tribune executives today are betting that good old TV is the way to go—and they may be right. Although TV viewing has declined dramatically in the smartphone and online era, broadcast programs still command the largest audiences. Buying TV stations gives Tribune 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 the Internet has overtaken newspapers in annual U.S. ad revenue, TV and cable still led all media in 2012, grabbing more than 38 percent of all U.S. ad revenue. The Internet accounted for 19 percent of ad spending, while the newspapers fell to third place with a 15.5 percent share. Looking ahead, forecasters see newspaper advertising’s share declining further, to just 10 percent.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

“There’s almost no media experience sweeter … than poring over a good newspaper. In the quiet morning, with a cup of coffee—so long as you haven’t turned on the TV, listened to the radio, or checked in online—it’s as comfortable and personal as information gets.”

JON KATZ, WIRED, 1994

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 those papers’ print versions 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.

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image 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 kind of leaders to elect.

Despite the importance of newspapers 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 eBay, monster.com, and craigslist. According to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), in 2012 total newspaper ad revenues fell 6 percent (compared to a 28 percent decline in 2009 and 9.2 percent fall in 2011). Online ad sales increased only 4 percent in 2012 after an 11 percent decline in 2009 during the recession. 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. The NAA reported in 2012, for the first time since 2003, actual growth in circulation revenue—up 5 percent with a 275-percent gain in digital-only circulation revenue. This 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.

Past-Present-Future: Newspapers

As late as the 1980s, many adults started their day reading a newspaper that was delivered to their front door. For most of the nation’s first two hundred years, these home-delivered newspapers played a key role in informing people and helping them make sense of events and issues that affected their communities and country.

Today this job has been usurped, first by radio and TV and, most recently, by online news sites, blogs, and social media. Traditional printed newspapers are struggling as the page turns from a print world to a digital one, and they have lost both young readers and ad revenue to Internet news sources. Nonetheless, newspapers still play a central role in informing and educating people. After all, aggregators like Yahoo! and Google most often send their search-engine users looking for the best information and daily reports to newspaper sites. In fact, newspapers are still considered the most dependable and trustworthy source for news.

Think about your own use of actual printed newspaper. Track how often you look at one during a typical week. Compare this to how often you look for news online in that same week. Where do you tend to go for your news? Finally, how do you think the newspaper industry can keep publishing good journalism and train new journalists in the digital age … and still make money?