There are signs that the industry is trying to reinvent itself, or at least complain more vociferously about the forces that are marginalizing it.

What’s Black & White And Spread All Over? – MediaPost, Dec. 10, 2007
[A study commissioned by the newspaper industry finds that newspaper readers are more likely to be influencers than non-readers. The results really aren’t surprising. In percentage terms, twice as many people over the age of 60 read daily newspapers as under the age of 30. Given that newspaper readership increases with age, it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that older people would be more influential in purchasing decisions than kids. You can also assume that people who can afford a subscription to a newspaper are somewhat more affluent than those who rely solely on the Web. It’s hard to tell; the rather skimpy 10-slide presentation on the NNN’s site gives no demographic breakdown. – Ed.]

Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky, ajc.com, Dec. 13, 2007
[The author calls for “citizen journalism” to be regulated and/or certified. The scenarios he outlines to support his case are valid. Unfortunately, professional journalists aren’t licensed or certified, so the idea that ordinary citizens should be subjected to some kind of review process rings pretty hollow. -Ed.]

Local Papers’ Web Scramble – WSJ.com, Dec. 18, 2007
[Newspapers are rapidly losing market share in the one market in which they should have a significant edge: local advertising. In 2007, for the first time, pure-play Web companies had a larger share of local advertising than newspapers. In just three years, newspapers’ overall share of that market is down from 44% to 33.4%. This is largely newspapers’ own fault. Instead of investing in local sales staff over the last decade, they have mainly focused on trying to sell more high-margin national display advertising. Meanwhile, pure-play Web companies swooped in and took their market share. -Ed.]

Read All About It – The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 28, 2007

[As Wall Street Journal Deputy Managing Editor Paul E. Steiger prepares to step out the door, he pens a thoughtful and dispassionate retrospective on what calls “the collapse of metro newspapers’ business model.” The 40-yet newspaper veteran chronicles the rise of the dominant media companies in the 60 and 70s that led to the post-Watergate “golden age of journalism.” He also tells of some of the spending excesses of that time that may have created too high a comfort level at the dominant dailies.

You’ll find some tidbits about the internal struggles at the Journal during the early days of the Internet. Steiger’s also right in pointing out that most newspapers’ early online efforts were half-hearted and unoriginal. This is ultimately a narrative on the industry’s decline, not an opinion piece about what should be or what should have been. In that respect, it’s frustrating to read. One would hope that a veteran with Steiger’s perspective would offer some opinon about what the industry should do, but he mainly sticks to the story line. In closing, however, he notes that he’s leaving the Journal to head up a small online investigative reporting group funded by two philanthropists. Perhaps his transition to the digital world is the most telling statement of all. – Ed.]

Switching sides – San Francisco Bay Guardian, Dec. 27, 2007
[A Bay Area alternative paper chronicles the diffusion of laid-off journalists into public relations jobs. While many are working for politicians and state agencies, some are in moving into the commercial sphere as well. Will the spinmeistering profession benefit from the addition of more seasoned journalists to the corps? – Ed.]

Seattle Times publisher hints at deep cuts – Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec. 27, 2007
“In his e-mail, [Seattle Times Publisher and Chief Executive Frank ] Blethen said revenue from print ads will be down by about 9 percent in 2007, with a similar decline expected in 2008. For combined 2007 and 2008, print revenue losses will be about $33 million, he said. In 2000, the paper booked $270 million in ad revenue, while in 2007, it fell below $200 million, he said. ‘Our Seattle Times newspaper losses for the decade will exceed $40 million — a staggering number,’ he wrote.”

U.S. media face troubling 2008 – Toronto Globe and Mail, Nov. 26, 2007
“Experts say advertisers need to remain competitive in a tighteningmarket while keeping costs down, making them likely to boost spending in areas more directly linked to commerce, such as Web search queries. That would benefit companies like Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. But television networks like CBS or NBC and Web companies like Yahoo Inc. that rely on brand advertising could suffer.”

The following commentaries come from longtime foot soldiers of newspapering who speak out against the bottom-line mindset that has overtaken their industry.

MAGPIE » Killing the watchdogs. – Arthur Magazine blogs for you…

[David Carr presents an impassioned and eloquent argument for the value of investigative reporting, despite the fact that it will never be a profit-making activity. “Thousands of bloggers could type for a millennium and not come up with the kind of deeply reported story that freed innocent men — an effort that takes years of inquiry, deep sources and a touch for making unholy secrets knowable,” he writes. Layoffs and cost-cutting are threatening to kill this vital public policy role that the media plays. -Ed.]

Scholars and Rogues » Blog Archive » Journalism then; journalism now: comprehending the difference

[Denny Wilkins remembers the best editor he ever had and rues the fact that big corporations have turned news reporting into a commercial endeavor. He quotes frequently from David Carr’s piece noted above. – Ed.]

Gannett’s got a brand new (anonymous) blog!

[The Gannett Blog is all about Gannett Co., Inc. Only it’s not published by Gannett. The author describes him/herself as “Not in management. Not a union member. No ax to grind. And Gannett Blog has no formal affiliation with Gannett Co. Inc.” One thing’s for sure: the author is prolific, often posting several items a day. The blog was launched in June but has only been actively updated for the past month or so. Gannett employees are encouraged to submit tips. – Ed.]

Departing Sentinel editor takes job with PR firm – SantaCruzSentinel.com, Nov. 30, 2007

Quoting: “Honig acknowledged Thursday that he anticipated further cuts at the150-year-old newspaper following a round of editorial layoffs this summer…The Sentinel’s publisher, David B. Regan, confirmed that he will make an announcement in coming weeks about possible further cuts at the newspaper. He said it has not been determined if layoffs are imminent, but said, ‘Everything is on the table.'”

‘NYT’ To Axe 12 Newsroom Jobs Now, Management Cuts Next Year – Editor & Publisher, Nov. 28, 2007

[The people affected are mainly support and clerical staff, indicating that the Times is still reluctant to take strong medicine. It’s easiest to cut the people at the bottom of the food chain, but laying off executives and veteran reporters is where you get the real cost savings. This move looks more like a sop to investors. – Ed.]

USA TODAY plans to cut 45 newsroom jobs – USATODAY.com, Nov. 15, 2007

[In reporting on its own troubles, USA Today points to a copy of the memo from Editor Ken Paulson, which oddly is hosted on Poynter. – Ed.]

McClatchy’s Kansas City Star offers buyouts – Reuters, Nov, 28, 2007

[As noted in other posts, McClatchy is probably the most troubled newspaper company in the country. Ed.]

An Important Lesson About Grassroots Media – Editor & Publisher, Nov. 26, 2007

The founder of a now-defunct community journalism venture talks about what he learned. While the idea of grassroots reporting is exciting and citizen journalists have a lot to contribute, the overall quality of their contributions is weak enough that pure community sites will have trouble succeeding, he says. The better model appears to be to combine content from professional editors with that contributed by citizens without regard to who is the so-called professional. A few pure grassroots sites will succeed – he cites Flickr and YouTube as examples – but only if they have massive membership. For smaller operations like the moribund Backfence, the quantity of good content doesn’t justify the amount of time readers have to spend finding it.

The Newspaper Association of America tapped 23 thought leaders for their opinions on the future of newspapers. I’m just diving into it now but am already impressed at the innovative thinking represented there. You can download the whole thing as a 73-page PDF to take along on your next flight.

The Seattle Times minority owner cites an 81 percent ‘loss in value’ – Crosscut Seattle

“McClatchy disclosed on Thursday, Nov. 8, that it wrote off $1.52 billion of the worth of 31 newspapers and other holdings. Buried deep in a quarterly filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission was further news that the writedown included a drop of $69.1 million in valuation of McClatchy’s stake in the Seattle Times Co…What McClatchy stated was worth $102.2 million then is thought to be worth a mere $19.0 million now. And as McClatchy noted in this latest SEC filing, it now sees the loss in value of the Seattle Times Co. as ‘other than temporary.'”

‘NYT’ Introduces Comments on Web Stories — But Worries About It – Editor & Publisher, Nov. 4, 2007

“Quietly, without promoting the move, The New York Times began this week publishing on its Web site readers’ comments at the end of certain articles. This is a move The Washington Post and USA Today, and many other newspapers, began long ago.”

[The decision to add moderation to comments adds costs to the revenue-strapped Times, but the Old Gray Lady isn’t yet ready to let go. Says Times‘ Public Editor Clark Hoyt, ““How does the august Times, which has long stood for dignified authority, come to terms with the fractious, democratic culture of the Internet, where readers expect to participate but sometimes do so in coarse, bullying and misinformed ways? The answer so far is cautiously, carefully and with uneven success.” – Ed.]

First FAS-FAX Numbers: Many Top Papers Take Big Hits – Editor & Publisher, Nov. 5, 2007

“Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains…According to an analysis of ABC figures, for 538 daily U.S. newspapers, circulation declined 2.5% to 40,689,617. For 609 papers that filed on Sunday, overall circulation dropped 3.5% to 46,771,486…For the past several years, publishers, particularly those at major metros, have been whittling back on circulation considered to be less useful by advertisers. Those papers fall into the category of other paid, which includes hotel, Newspapers in Education, employee, and third party copies.

“Of course, the trend points to fewer people reading the paper too as single-copy sales, considered a barometer of the industry, is decreasing at larger rates than the overall top line number — somewhere in the ballpark of 5%.”

[Santa Barbara News-Press appears to be especially hard hit. – Ed.]

MediaPost Publications – Age, Income of Magazine Readers Edge Up – 10/31/2007 Annotated

Online, Newspaper Audiences Up, But Revenue Growth Slows – MediaPost, Nov. 1, 2007 Annotated

Don’t count newspapers out yet – CNN Money, Oct. 22, 2007 Annotated

‘Newsweek’ Gets New Execs, New Look – MediaPost, Oct. 31, 2007 Annotated

The Public Editor of the Orlando Sentinel notes that newsroom cutbacks are leading to more errors in the newspaper because copy editors aren’t checking copy as carefully as they once did. “In the past three months, the newspaper has corrected more than a third more errors of its own making on average than it did during the relatively placid prior five months. August, September and October have accounted, thus far, for significantly more corrections of internally generated errors than the newspaper averaged in that three-month period during the prior five years.”

This includes incorrectly identifying the winner of an NFL game on the front page of the sports section. Whoops.

Dark day at the BBC as staff learn their fate – The Independent, Oct. 18, 2007

Big Weeklies Sputter, Smaller Pubs Soar – MediaPost, Sept. 04, 2007

[It’s not a good time to be a broad, general-purpose magazine. Time and Newsweek circulation is trending steadily down, while U.S. News’ numbers are falling precipitously. Meanwhile, Europe’s The Economist and The Week are growing nicely.

What’s strange about all this is that both of the European magazines publish longish, weighty and thoughtful articles. Since the USAToday-ization of the media began in 1984, conventional wisdom has been that the only way to keep readers was to lighten, shorten, colorize and sap editorial content of as much depth as possible. Now it appears that growth is shifting to publications with some gravity. Maybe we’re beginning to lose our appetite for cartoon infographics? – Ed.]

Morgan Stanley Sells Entire New York Times Stake – Bloomberg, Oct. 17, 2007