Death of a Newspaper

[MisterCairo]

A trend in print publishing that is sad but I think irreversible, the Guelph Mercury ceased its print edition last Friday after 149 years. There will still be an online "edition".

Has anyone else seen a local paper end in this fashion?

http://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/6254268-the-guelph-mercury-lived-for-149-years/

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ours did about five years ago, but the owner of the local shopper bought it out of bankruptcy and started it up again. It's not the same as it was -- it went from a three-a-week paper, which it had been for over a hundred and thirty years, to a weekly paper, and the level of reporter skill isn't quite what it was before, but a third of a loaf is better than no loaf at all.

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

I once thought that the death of the physical newspaper was overwhelmingly because people chose to read newspapers online (or at least largely read news content online), but I fear it is actually that people now have the supreme diversion of a smartphone and that the issue of 'content' is of periphery importance.

A newspaper was often a social prop: on a train, a bus, a dentist's waiting room, a visit to the in-laws when too many unfamiliar relatives are in attendance; the fact that you ended up reading news stories was a serendipitous benefit (for society too). A smartphone with some idiotic social network requires far less effort.

For the record, I have no smartphone.

 

[Fading Fast]

I once thought that the death of the physical newspaper was overwhelmingly because people chose to read newspapers online (or at least largely read news content online), but I fear it is actually that people now have the supreme diversion of a smartphone and that the issue of 'content' is of periphery importance.

A newspaper was often a social prop: on a train, a bus, a dentist's waiting room, a visit to the in-laws when too many unfamiliar relatives are in attendance; the fact that you ended up reading news stories was a serendipitous benefit (for society too). A smartphone with some idiotic social network requires far less effort.

For the record, I have no smartphone.

I wonder if there is an data on the percentage of the population that reads newspaper and news story on-lline versus the percentage that read newspapers pre-Internet. Before the Internet (before smartphones), I used to carry a newspaper and book with me practically everywhere as I can stand on line, wait for something, sit on a subway if I have something good to read, but without it, I am bored in thirty seconds. The thing that the smartphone did for me, was allow me to "carry" several newspapers and books all in one small devise.

I love physical books and newspapers, but from a convenience perspective, the smartphone has reduced my need to carry a bag with newspapers and books around. Hence, I'm curious if, as you suggest, the Internet has reduced the reading of news (as many young kids today read news sites that are not related to an old-line paper) or just changed the way it is read.

Radio and TV seemed to have killed the short story / serial magazine story - which was huge in the first several decades of the last century - but I'm less sure the same is happening to newspapers (or news anyway).

 

[LizzieMaine]

I prefer print newspapers for practical reasons -- my vision is very poor, and I find a newspaper page much easier to read and follow than a screen. And I like to read while I'm eating -- when I go to a restaurant for lunch, I have a newspaper propped up on the table or counter in front of me. No messing with "scrolling," no worrying if there'll be wi-fi or not, no squinting at tiny little blocks of print. I find a newspaper easier to read in every possible way.

I don't care about immediacy. Convenience and ease of accessibility are far more important to me than being the first one to know what's going on.

My car is full of newspapers and random books -- right now there's a thick volume on the assassination of Martin Luther King, a first-edition printing of "Charlotte's Web," a raggedy paperback edition of "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud, the complete poems of Stephen Vincent Benet, and an English translation of a Soviet novel about the native tribes of Siberia sitting on the front seat, and a whole box full of random stuff in the back seat. If I didn't manage to get a paper on any given day, I can always reach into the car and grab something that will distract me for the twenty minutes it takes to eat my lunch.

 

[Capesofwrath]

Today The Independent, a UK national newspaper ceased its print edition and went online only. It never really recovered from Murdoch cutting the cost of The Times to a pittance to undercut it twenty and more years ago. He has deep pockets and he took a loss on The Times for a decade to grab market share and undercut his rivals. The Guardian also suffered from his predatory price cuts but unlike The Independent they were among the first to go online in a big way; and now it’s read all over the world. It still doesn’t make a profit from its online publishing though and posts a steady loss every year…

Pay walls work for specialist content but not for general news since it’s available everywhere. If in variable quality and trustworthiness. But like music, people have become used to getting it for nothing and don’t want to pay now. So the physical newspaper is heading the way of the CD, and like that will be gone completely in a decade or so.

 

[Benproof]

Sorry to hear of the loss of the Guelph Mercury (nice little church there by the way).

There are decent community papers around the world which serve a community function, especially for the older generation who might still not use internet, or be more traditional set.

On the other hand I have no sympathy for the demise of the UK 'Independent Newspaper'. I used to read it as a student, and then they started with a load of crass journalists like Johann Hari, and even descended into "I, sociopath" articles by Julie Birchill. Johann Hari, that arrogant dipstick who claimed that because he was "depressed", he was better than normal people who never experienced depression, was eventually suspended for plagiarism:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/20/johann-hari-quits-the-independent

and Julie Burchill's sexual promiscuity for heterosexuals as a banner queen, yet public hatred for vulnerable transgender people, also did the paper no favours: http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/jan/14/theobserver-transgender

coupled with their failure to master syntax and semantics, it's no surprise that the reading public moved away from their weak blend of empty sensationalist journalism with no content when their own curated journalists needed their own heads curating.

These days, I read the Daily Telegraph, only because it's offered free with the purchase of a bottle of mineral water. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Similarly, in some airports, the papers are dished out free; in London, the Metro paper and Evening Standard have gone this way and the journalism has descended into a youtube upload search by have-a-go-commuter-journalists or by a selection of twitter feeds which are cut and paste with no commentary.

The era of decent journalists like Fergal Keane, now with the BBC Service, imported a tremendous degree of human solidarity with the utmost professionalism which later generations of journalists seem to be indifferent to.

However the English language newspapers have never been quite like the French ones, which takes journalism to a different level (including bringing down government).

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

The Telegraph is now equally crass and often very lowbrow. Especially the dross they post online. It's also still favourable to the Tories and they print 'work' from that noisemaking machine Toby Young, which is perhaps the number one reason to avoid it.

 

[newsman]

A trend in print publishing that is sad but I think irreversible, the Guelph Mercury ceased its print edition last Friday after 149 years. There will still be an online "edition".

Has anyone else seen a local paper end in this fashion?
\

Oh, yes, sadly. Newspaper readership has been down every year since 1972 and the internet isn't helping. Sadly almost no one makes money on internet newspapers. But i've seen a number of very small to medium sized newspapers fold in the last 20 years. A lot of magazines are doing the same.

Some papers used to have an afternoon edition. Those are gone for the most part. And our last hot lead machine stopped running about 15 years ago.

That was sad for another reason. The press guys would give me old lead that I would recycle in another form of "hot lead." Linotype lead is harder than most and casts very well.

Anyway. I drifted. The Christian Science Monitor is now online only. That was a paper a lot of journalists read to learn how to write. At one time they had some of the best ever printed.

Until people start reading again it's unlikely to change.

 

[DNO]

The demise of the print edition of most newspapers may be inevitable. I hope it isn't, but I have a bad feeling about this.

I've been a newspaper reader my whole life. My father worked for a major Canadian newspaper. My first summer job was as an office boy at the Toronto Star and my summer job while in university was as a proofreader at the Globe. I was lucky to work for newspapers when they still used hot lead and those extremely long steel tables in the composing room. I'll never forget the sheer volume of noise in the press room either.

I currently receive 3 daily newspapers. Two I actually subscribe to and one that seems to come along for the ride. I guess they're beefing up their circulation figures. That one goes straight into the recycling bin but the two I subscribe to are read thoroughly by my wife and myself. I look at news sites online, as well, but it's not the same.

I'll miss them when they're gone.

 

[newsman]

I'll miss them when they're gone.

Me too. I enjoyed working in the news industry. It was an interesting place. But I think we have about 30 more years before the papers really stop rolling.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't want to outlive print journalism, so 30 years should be about right.

 

[newsman]

I don't want to outlive print journalism, so 30 years should be about right.

You and me both. A newspaper is the first draft of history.

 

[Fading Fast]

Me too. I enjoyed working in the news industry. It was an interesting place. But I think we have about 30 more years before the papers really stop rolling.

Do you mean you think we have thirty more years of physical papers or of the concept - even on-line - of a daily news delivery company? IMHO, print won't last 30 more years, but daily news - delivering news content on-line or in some format - companies will live on well past that.

 

[newsman]

Do you mean you think we have thirty more years of physical papers or of the concept - even on-line - of a daily news delivery company? IMHO, print won't last 30 more years, but daily news - delivering news content on-line or in some format - companies will live on well past that.

Well you pose an interesting question.

Arthur Sulzberger. Jr. of the New York Times once said, "I don't give a d*Mn how you get your news. I'll beam it to your cerebral cortex, if I have to." He said this...over 20 years ago.

He also suggested that you would use a tablet to check in at a kiosk....that would load your daily news. He missed the wireless revolution. But he is right. Tablets and news go hand and hand today.

Companies are going to have to adapt. To what...that remains a bit of a mystery. I think paper print will remain for the purist....much like real film...35mm and large negatives...but to the common consumer things have changed...in 30 or maybe 40 years...when another generation has passed to the history books...i think print will reach the point where only the purist will consume the printed product. As much as i love a book...i love my Kindle....the ba***rd...i get books in seconds...and read twice as much...but it does not mean I do not love paper.

In short...the media's medium will change to reflect the consumer. News is news...how you get it...may well change.

I don't think, however, radio will go away. It has lasted almost 100 years...and you can do more than one thing while it's playing on your radio. You can't do that with any other medium.

 

[DNO]

Me too. I enjoyed working in the news industry. It was an interesting place. But I think we have about 30 more years before the papers really stop rolling.

I hope you're right...and it was an exciting place to work. I loved the proofroom...what a collection of amazing, intelligent and definitely quirky people. There were some truly fascinating eccentrics in there.

 

[newsman]

I hope you're right...and it was an exciting place to work. I loved the proofroom...what a collection of amazing, intelligent and definitely quirky people. There were some truly fascinating eccentrics in there.

Yes, the organic nature of the news room is amazing.

In my case it was the press room. I could walk in and hold two fingers in the air and get two right off the press with wet ink.

 

[Fading Fast]

First, let me re-emphasize my love of physical newspapers - they, more than TV news and more than radio (which beat TV by a landslide for me), brought the world to me as a kid and into my early 30s when I gravitated to on-line versions of the papers because I read them very early and it was getting harder to find them in physical form that early, but they post them on-line very early.

Also, I have no direct knowledge of the newspaper business' economics, but my basic business knowledge tells me that maintaining the physical and fixed costs for printing and delivering a daily copy of the paper, plus having to cover the variable costs will not be sustainable as the buyers of physical papers continues to shrink over the next, even, ten years. Take a look at the demographics of who reads the physical paper the next time you are in an airport - practically no-one under 30 does, not too many under 40 and not even that many in their 50s. At some point, the advertising fees and subscription / newsstand revenue won't cover the physical paper. My completely unscientific guess is they have ten to fifteen years left at most. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[MisterCairo]

Copied from the original article:

"The decision was not made lightly, but the decline of classified and national advertising in recent years has made it impossible for the printed copy of this daily newspaper to stay profitable," Mercury and Record publisher Donna Luelo said Monday, when the announcement of the closure was made. It was reported that the paper had about 9,000 subscribers."

The Nanaimo (British Columbia) Daily news ceased its print edition the same day as the Guelph Mercury. A bigger paper, Montreal's La Presse, stopped its weekday print edition last month as well.

I read somewhere recently an American publisher predicted that the year 2043 would see the last print paper in North America shut down.

Whatever the year, it will be sad.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I read somewhere recently an American publisher predicted that the year 2043 would see the last print paper in North America shut down.

And with my luck, it'll be the Boston Herald.