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Gannett lays off journalists across the country

The "news" industry has been overpopulated for a good many years. This just might be a "correction".
 
The Jackson, TN Sun, which is owned by Gannett, is mostly a reprint of USA Today except for the local articles, and has gone to fewer pages over time.
 
Kemosabe said:
Like the "correction" last year at The Denver Post?
Click to expand...

I can't speak to the Denver Post specifically. The "news" media I referred to encompasses all the electronic mediums of which there are literally thousands - all seemingly having variations of stories and loads of opinion pieces. Every major TV station in my market has large staffs and devotes many broadcast hours to "news" regardless of whether it is actually real news, reconstituted selections from earlier pieces or irrelevant puff pieces. We don't need, or necessarily want, this overload. Newspapers are in a slightly different dilemma. There is no such thing as "breaking news" in the newspaper industry any longer so what they do is more in depth or investigative types of stories - just the type of story that does not generally attract the average news consumer. The other big disadvantage newspapers have is that they are directly supported by advertising. They have nothing to sell of an entertainment product as do TV and radio. Therefore, if big advertisers feel they are not reaching the right demographic with their ad dollars they go elsewhere and the newspaper is left sans revenue. TV, especially, can sell entertainment for revenue and read the headlines off the wire services at much less cost. Or, as my local Fox station has shown, they put entertainment program pieces inside their "news" programming killing two birds with one stone. It isn't good news reporting but the public doesn't seem to care.
 
landtuna said:
The other big disadvantage newspapers have is that they are directly supported by advertising. They have nothing to sell of an entertainment product as do TV and radio.
Click to expand...

This is why the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership ban was so bad for newspapers. Now they're dependent on the benevolence of billionaires such as Jeff Bezos to fund their work. They need to find another revenue stream, or they'll be doomed. They're trying to charge online subscriptions, but that may not be enough.
 
At the time the broadcast-newspaper cross ownership ban was done for good reasons.
There was fear of putting that much control over how local news is covered into one set of hands.
There was a case study done (in Zanesville, Ohio I think) where a single owner of multiple media
was having an undue influence.

Today however those arguments have largely withered away. The alternative to one-source coverage
has become no coverage. And there is a danger in losing all coverage of your local school boards and
town councils. Repealing or modifying the ban would allow both print and broadcast to support each other
and limp along for awhile longer.
 
TheBigA said:
This is why the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership ban was so bad for newspapers. Now they're dependent on the benevolence of billionaires such as Jeff Bezos to fund their work. They need to find another revenue stream, or they'll be doomed. They're trying to charge online subscriptions, but that may not be enough.
Click to expand...

Agree. Unfortunately, the copyrighted stories from your local newspaper (who has instituted a subscription) are readily available from a whole host of other web-based services so the incentive to subscribe is greatly reduced. The major attraction then would be if the focus was on local news as opposed to the wire services. The newspapers would still have the 'time delay' issue though.
 
landtuna said:
There is no such thing as "breaking news" in the newspaper industry any longer so what they do is more in depth or investigative types of stories - just the type of story that does not generally attract the average news consumer.
Click to expand...

While the newspaper industry may no longer "stop the presses" or issue extra editions in print, it certainly reports breaking news online. Newspapers also publish editorials and op-ed columns—features rarely found in the broadcast media these days. Perhaps those not attracted to in-depth or or investigative journalism would consider such commentary tedious.

The other big disadvantage newspapers have is that they are directly supported by advertising. They have nothing to sell of an entertainment product as do TV and radio. Therefore, if big advertisers feel they are not reaching the right demographic with their ad dollars they go elsewhere and the newspaper is left sans revenue.
Click to expand...

Newspapers have some, albeit limited, entertainment in the form of comic strips (especially limited in The New York Times ;)), puzzles, and such. A newspaper is left sans revenue only if there are no paid subscribers.
 
Kemosabe said:
While the newspaper industry may no longer "stop the presses" or issue extra editions in print, it certainly reports breaking news online.
Click to expand...

I think that is the future of newspapers. They just have to find a way to monetize that online platform at a time when online advertising is dwindling. Which is why HuffPost and other online sites are also cutting back.
 
anotherguy said:
The Jackson, TN Sun, which is owned by Gannett, is mostly a reprint of USA Today except for the local articles, and has gone to fewer pages over time.
Click to expand...

The Tennessean has shrunk to the point that it was not much larger than the Union City Daily Messenger Wednesday edition. (That was the one with the grocery ads.) The Tennessean is also heavy with USA Today content now. It got so bad that even my parents dropped The Tennessean. But some of that may have been because of delivery issues.
 
Kemosabe said:
Newspapers have some, albeit limited, entertainment in the form of comic strips (especially limited in The New York Times ;)), puzzles, and such. A newspaper is left sans revenue only if there are no paid subscribers.
Click to expand...

I suspected I would get this comment even though I chose to leave it out. What I meant, of course, is that the very limited entertainment revenue the paper might enjoy would not begin to cover their publishing expenses while those of the typical TV station cover a substantial amount of station operations. I was speaking of the revenue the paper obtains through their entertainment features only.

At a recent block party here in my small patch of Earth we did a survey of the number of people who still subscribe to a daily newspaper. It is important to note that my development consists of older homeowners the majority of whom are retired or very close to retirement - hence, those are the people you would expect to have time to devour a newspaper with their morning coffee. The answer surprised me: Only 1/6th of families represented (about 30% of total houses) said they take the paper. Another couple get the Sunday-only edition. That is just over 16% - much less than the penetration of TV/radio news.

Interestingly (to me anyway) was that only a very few adults and no younger people admitted to working the crosswords or reading the comic strips. My late mother-in-law was the only person I ever knew who was fond of the crosswords. I was a huge comic reader in my youth although I must admit the ones in my current paper are not near the same quality I remember from the old days and there are practically no serials as there were back then either.
 
It's tough if not impossible to sell entertainment features in a newspaper "Dear Abby is brought to you by Household Finance" like on radio and TV.

We must not forget that Craigslist decimated the Classified Ad business. People would pay by the word to print a rosary or prayer to St. Jude, as well as sell their cars, and whatever else (even radio's Swap Shop shows didn't kill that business).



landtuna said:
I suspected I would get this comment even though I chose to leave it out. What I meant, of course, is that the very limited entertainment revenue the paper might enjoy would not begin to cover their publishing expenses while those of the typical TV station cover a substantial amount of station operations. I was speaking of the revenue the paper obtains through their entertainment features only.

At a recent block party here in my small patch of Earth we did a survey of the number of people who still subscribe to a daily newspaper. It is important to note that my development consists of older homeowners the majority of whom are retired or very close to retirement - hence, those are the people you would expect to have time to devour a newspaper with their morning coffee. The answer surprised me: Only 1/6th of families represented (about 30% of total houses) said they take the paper. Another couple get the Sunday-only edition. That is just over 16% - much less than the penetration of TV/radio news.

Interestingly (to me anyway) was that only a very few adults and no younger people admitted to working the crosswords or reading the comic strips. My late mother-in-law was the only person I ever knew who was fond of the crosswords. I was a huge comic reader in my youth although I must admit the ones in my current paper are not near the same quality I remember from the old days and there are practically no serials as there were back then either.
Click to expand...
 
landtuna said:
The answer surprised me: Only 1/6th of families represented (about 30% of total houses) said they take the paper. Another couple get the Sunday-only edition. That is just over 16% - much less than the penetration of TV/radio news.
Click to expand...

I'm not that surprised. How many of them have lived in Phoenix for more than 25 years?

I find local newspaper readership is higher among lifelong residents of an area. And their interest is the obituaries.
 
landtuna said:
Only 1/6th of families represented (about 30% of total houses) said they take the paper. Another couple get the Sunday-only edition. That is just over 16% - much less than the penetration of TV/radio news.
Click to expand...

With readership dwindling, some newspapers have reduced their publication schedule. Notably, in 2012, The Times-Picayune had limited its print edition to three days a week—Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Owing to pressure from competition, however, the paper resumed daily publication in 2014. Apparently, there remains enough demand to support a daily paper in New Orleans.

Interestingly (to me anyway) was that only a very few adults and no younger people admitted to working the crosswords or reading the comic strips … I was a huge comic reader in my youth although I must admit the ones in my current paper are not near the same quality I remember from the old days and there are practically no serials as there were back then either.
Click to expand...

What a change from the days when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia read the comics over the WNYC airwaves because of a newspaper strike.
 
TheBigA said:
I think that is the future of newspapers. They just have to find a way to monetize that online platform at a time when online advertising is dwindling. Which is why HuffPost and other online sites are also cutting back.
Click to expand...

Online advertising is not dwindling. It is just becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of Facebook and Google, who do not wish to share with publishers if they can avoid it.. Google revenue has increased 20-25% the last 3 years, and Facebook an eye-popping 42-55% per annum over the same time frame. Sure, these companies do sell some physical products and non-advertising services (like Google Play music), but advertising is by far their largest revenue stream.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Sure, these companies do sell some physical products and non-advertising services (like Google Play music), but advertising is by far their largest revenue stream.
Click to expand...

My view is that what gives Amazon the advantage over Facebook and Google is it has developed its own live of physical products. Imagine how things might have been different if a radio company had come up with the Echo (or something like it).
 
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