local newspapers...

[davestlouis]

Am I the only one who wonders when the local, daily newspaper will dry up and blow away? The St Louis Post-Dispatch is a shadow of its former self, with articles off the wire services, and advertisements, and of course obituaries(which are obscenely overpriced). I used to read the paper religiously, now I don't bother, and I find it offensive to pay $1 for the daily paper.

On the subject of obits, a "normal" one day death notice with no photo, runs about $350, the big ones with pics and whatnot can run well over $1000...it's shameful.

So, is local print media a dying breed?

 

[LocktownDog]

Our daily local paper, The Nevada Appeal, is no longer even daily. Its coming up on its 145th anniversary and is a shadow of what it once was. Not even worth reading anymore, as its more advertisements than columns.

 

[davestlouis]

We have about 3-4 local columnists, the rest of it comes right off the UP wire, and dozens of ads for car dealerships, that's about it.

 

[Viola]

From what I can tell, the local papers that are probably going to last the longest are the ones where the readers feel like they need it, like they aren't going to be able to just find it on CNN: the Philadelphia Gay News, Philadelphia Tribune, the Jewish Exponent, Al Dia, Metro Chinese Weekly, and Metro Viet News.

They have a bit (just a little bit) of a built-in readership that isn't going to give them up. Especially the foreign-language local papers.

 

[Tango Yankee]

I used to love reading the paper.

Our local paper, the Portsmouth Daily Times, isn't that great so I don't bother with it. It doesn't have very much in it, and it tends to lean to the right in a county that tends to vote Democratic. It seems to be in the pocket of the few big fish in this little pond. In any case, I'm not interested in spending seventy-five cents for 10 pages, or whatever it's costing these days. I sometimes peruse an issue or two at my father-in-law's house during our Sunday visits, but that doesn't take more than a couple of minutes--including the Sunday paper.

I grew up delivering one of the local papers where I lived (South Gate, CA) The Daily Signal. I started my first paper route with them when I was 7 years old and continued delivering papers until high school, if I recall correctly. I'd read the paper while folding them for delivery. The Daily Signal is long gone, alas; I'm hard put to even find a mention of it anywhere online. The same for The South Gate Press, and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

During the over 13 years I spent overseas my "local" paper was The Stars and Stripes. I bought that almost every day, except for weekends if I didn't go to the base. Still, at the bookstore you could often get the weekend papers Monday morning if you were early enough.

If I could have it delivered here, I'd have the Columbus Dispatch delivered, but they don't come down this far. I buy it out of a machine from time to time.

These days I get most of my news online. I'll read CNN on my work phone when sitting and waiting for an appointment, or during my lunch break.

Sadly, I think that yes, the local print media is a dying breed. That is a major loss, even if most people don't realize it. It used to be the local print media that kept us informed of what was going on in our area, the reporters that kept tabs on what the city leadership was doing and let us know, and yes, that covered the local cheesy stuff that is important to no one but the family and friends of those mentioned in the paper. Quite frankly, CNN or Fox or MSNBC doesn't care what's going on in our backyards unless it's something massive like a school shooting or a major disaster. Don't expect coverage by the "local" TV stations if you're a small rural town, not part of an urban sprawl around a city.

Yes, local print media is dying, and with it a very vital part of our world.

Regards,
Tom

 

[Paisley]

There's not much reason to buy a newspaper when its content is online for free. I don't see how they'll stay in business without selling online subscriptions.

 

[LizzieMaine]

For over a hundred years our local paper was a tri-weekly broadsheet, and it did serious local journalism -- it was a hard-hitting, crusading paper that earned the awards it collected over the years. A few years back it got bought out by an Internet Media company which eliminated one of the three editions, turned one of the remaining two into a tabloid, and basically gelded the editorial department. The print edition is now pretty much a throwaway, with the emphasis on developing a cheesy website that annoys me more every time I look at it. There is no longer any meaningful, serious local journalism being done here.

I still read the Boston Globe every day and will for as long as it exists, because I simply despise the way news is presented online -- the layouts hurt my eyes, the stories are dumbed down beyond endurance, and the comment sections are the best proof yet that idiocracy is in full flower. The newspapers may not be much better these days, but if the internet model is all we have left to look forward to, I weep over the corpse of journalism.

 

[Paisley]

The online newspaper I read has a printer-friendly button you can push to make a nice, square layout that's easier to read.

What I don't like is sloppy reporting, no fact checking, poor editing, non-existent proofreading, and running press releases as articles. I get more and more of my information from blogs, although I don't see them as a substitute for a newspaper.

 

[Big Man]

... There is no longer any meaningful, serious local journalism being done here. ...

You said it all right there. In a large city you may be able to get your news from the internet and/or cable tv, but in a small, rural town the only news is that which is printed in a local paper. Unfortunately, there are no "reporters" these days (at least here). My second grade grandson could do a better job writing a news story that the staff at our "local" paper (which, by the way, is owned by some mega company in another state). :rage:

 

[Lady Day]

Two words: Associated Press

LD

 

[Creeping Past]

There's currently a controversial move in the UK with local authorities (town and district councils) producing their own printed 'news' papers at the taxpayers' expense and competing with proper local newspapers - and all this at a time of a decline in news print.

The London Evening Standard, formerly a paid-for paper, is now given away free on the street to commuters. This is obviously a popular move and thousands of copies are taken and read.

Without getting into the obvious political implications of this trend in relation to political bodies having a hand in producing local news (maybe it happened before in different ways ), it's a sign that in the UK, at least, there's still a strong market for printed local newspapers. But, as Lizzie says, with dreadful low-value journalistic, image and graphical content.

If the well-trodden career path of journalism starts here, think of the potential problems emerging further up the tree and down the track.

I've a soft spot for old-style counter-cultural samizdat news sheets. These avoid the problem of collating news to suit advertising, but tend to be a medium for friends of friends. I wonder whether we'll see this medium re-emerge in any significant way as print journalism declines even further.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The local town paper in my neck of the woods, the Chesterton Tribune has been going strong for over 100 years. throughout that time, it has always been five days a week. I enjoy reading it if for no other reason than to read what stupid thing some kid got arrested for.

 

[Feraud]

I am lucky living in the NYC area where we have quite a few local newspapers. They vary in reporting quality from great to horrible but at least we have choices.

I don't enjoy reading articles online for the reasons noted by LizzieMaine.

And lets not get started on the whole "blog as unbiased up-to-the-second news" phenomena..

 

[Atticus Finch]

So, is local print media a dying breed?

Yeah, probably so...but not in my hometown of Beaufort, North Carolina. There, as long as area mom and pop seafood stores sell fresh fish, there will be a market for the Carteret County News Times....fondly known among locals as The Mullet Wrapper.

AF

 

[Cricket]

I am actually a reporter here in our hometown newspaper in Yazoo City, MS. We were once a daily newspaper, but have since converted to twice a week with Wednesday and Saturday publications. The editor (my husband) and I vowed never to let AP or wire news enter our newspaper. If our readers want national news, press releases from around the state, etc. they generally read The Clarion Ledger, our state daily.

For Yazoo news, and strictly Yazoo, they turn to us. We cover everything from murders to city council to county roads to mom and pop features. But that is why our paper has increased in its numbers and readers. Readers know they can get hometown news here first.

Honestly, I don't think Yazoo could afford a daily paper. And with the size of our town, there wouldn't be enough local news to fill up a daily, hence the wire coming in.

But I don't think newspapers are going anywhere. At least the community-style, weeklies aren't. But I do think some dailies are going to have to adapt.

 

[Big Man]

... For Yazoo news, and strictly Yazoo, they turn to us. We cover everything from murders to city council to county roads to mom and pop features. But that is why our paper has increased in its numbers and readers. Readers know they can get hometown news here first ...

You and your husband are to be commended. That is what "reporting" and a "local newspaper" is all about. We once had the same kind of local coverage, but the paper sold out to the big boys and now - nothing worth reading.

 

[Cricket]

You and your husband are to be commended. That is what "reporting" and a "local newspaper" is all about. We once had the same kind of local coverage, but the paper sold out to the big boys and now - nothing worth reading.

I totally agree with you and thanks. (Reporters love praising comments....keep them coming....we don't get them enough sometimes. )

But seriously, I have found that I love reading local newspapers and not the big giants of the media world when it comes to news coverage. We have several small newspapers that get bought out and then totally transformed.

We were lucky enough to have been bought by a larger group that wanted to keep our style and ethics.

 

[Feraud]

Here is some recent info regarding readership habits from Mediaweek.

Print media may have an advertising problem, but there is some good news for publishers: consumers haven’t abandoned their magazines and newspapers, according to GfK MRI’s spring audience survey.

The twice-annual report shows that total adult readership of magazines and newspapers rose nearly 1 percent versus spring 2009 and nearly 0.5 percent since MRI’s fall report.

At a time when interest in health is on the rise, several women’s health/fitness magazines saw year-over-year, double-digit readership gains. Fitness’ readership rose 31 percent, to 7.3 million. Shape’s increased 26 precent, to 6.8 million; and Women’s Health, nearly 21 percent, to 10.9 million.

Several women’s fashion/beauty magazines also saw lifts in readership. The biggest gainers included More, whose readership grew 26.3 percent to 1.8 million; Allure, up 25.6 percent to 7.4 million; and Elle, up 18.4 percent to 6.1 million.

The gains weren’t evenly shared. Vogue, while it still dominates in audience, grew its readership only 4.8 percent, to 11.6 million; while W declined 9.3 percent, to 1.4 million.

The data reflect print readership only and don’t take into account readership of the publications’ online brands.

Newspapers are seen as especially vulnerable as consumers get more of their news online, and the spring MRI report showed that the larger the newspaper, the greater the readership drop.

The top 100 papers’ dailies’ readership essentially held its own versus a year ago at 73 million, while the top 10 dailies’ readership declined 4.2 percent to 26.6 million. Across all circulation groups, newspapers’ Sunday readership declined faster than its daily readership.

Among the dueling national newspapers, the results were mixed. The New York Times’ daily readership plunged 16.7 percent to 2.4 million, while its Sunday readership slipped 2.8 percent to 3.9 million. Archrival The Wall Street Journal, which has stepped up its efforts to compete with the Times in the New York metro area, gained 6.5 percent, to 3.5 million. At USA Today, whose hotel-distributed circulation has declined, readership fell 11.4 percent to 3.3 million.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content...ewspapers/e3i66e6b9942a0b821fefb2b457a8bd71b2

 

[Smithy]

The paper is still very popular here. We have two main dailies here in Melbourne, "The Age" and "The Herald Sun" (each other state has their own as well), and the two nationals "The Australian" and "The Financial Times" which are all freely available. Each suburb (or group of connected suburbs) also has their weekly community newspaper and there is the free commuter newspaper "Mx" which is available from Monday to Friday after about 3pm and which has a very large circulation.

 

[Mav]

I used to love reading the paper.

Same here. Hell, I still would, if there was anything in it worth reading.
Our local last bastion of journalistic idiocy, the SF Chronicle, at least had some redeeming qualities when Herb Caen and Stanton Delaplane were still alive. Not to mention the semi- pornographic Macy's ads.
Little by little, regional/ local papers have become worthless. Contra Costa Times? Never good, but never this bad. The last local paper I got was the Benicia Herald, if for nothing else than the chuckles from reading the police report: Barking Dog on East 7th St..
I get news online now. But nothing replaces the tactile quality and daily ritual of reading actual newsprint over morning coffee. Unfortunately, that's now as dead as strapping on the .22 Marlin, jumping on the 10 speed, and heading up to the Mt. Diablo foothills to shoot birds. To quote a good friend, "I'm sure that the modern world is wonderful. I just don't have a place in it."
Plus, without the daily paper, I've got nothing to use for briquette starter.