Last year the Spokane paper offered me a deal: Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday for 52 weeks for $12.50. Yes indeed. I have no idea how that is a good business deal for them unless they get more money for advertisers from my three days and small payment. It became an even better deal when I got a year's full access to the Washington Post online for the same $12.50.
I subsequently received the same access offer as part of my regular subscription to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. There's some partnering going on out there.
Before we moved here nearly 10 years ago, the Cumberland Times News was already in the toilet. The local economy had taken such a long term beating that it was among the earlier papers to retrench. From what I can tell, based on the number of grammar errors and my dealings with them for getting stories into it, they operate semi-professionally. That is, there is a core staff of editors, but virtually all reporting and photography is done either as piecework or gratis. There is a competently done online version. Their competition is the non-profit and completely online Appalachian Independent. It definitely does some news breaking when it can. But, the bottom line is the resources are not really there for much and everything is done gratis. I don't think there are any paid staff. While it has been a number of years since I last checked, the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News in Salt Lake both are surviving. They saw the handwriting on the wall about 30 or more years ago and did some cooperative agreements for sharing printing facilities and classified advertising. That reduced both's costs a lot. The DNews is in the worse shape of the two, being the afternoon paper. It's survival is largely a function of the fact that it is owned by the Mormon Church, and the faithful will buy it, literally religiously. The Trib is the morning paper, which have tended to fare better during this shift. Both have done cut backs, but seem to be surviving. Some of that for both is state-wide distribution. While there are many local papers throughout Utah, you can find both of them everywhere in the state.
This week my local 7-11 stopped carrying all newspapers in the store. But in some good news that I heard on npr, the Washington Post has added 65 new writers in the past two months and expects hiring to continue. And The New York Times had more new subscriptions added in the past month and a half than in any single year in this millennium. Seems there's some demand for Trump fact finding.
First the Spokesman renewed my deal, which totally surprised me. Then in November they wrote to inform me that the Wed-Sat-Sun approach was confusing to the delivery staff, so unfortunately the plan was being discontinued. To make it up to me, they would keep the same price and add Thursday and Friday to my weekly delivery. That's five days a week, 52 weeks, $12.50. I am quite curious what they will offer when this deal is up.
Something noteworthy from this past weekend: the Lewiston Morning Tribune (which covers the "Quad Cities" of Lewiston ID, Clarkston WA, Moscow ID, and Pullman WA and is the sister publication to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News) published a 32 page insert on the 1877 Nez Perce War. Truly excellent stuff. It was included with my weekend Daily News and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Generally I don't think daily newspaper will die soon. There are many people still need it (though it's mostly old people). Still, one thing is true is that online media is kinda taking over the daily newspapers. But personally somehow I don't really like media nowadays. It's kinda misleading to some point, it redirects people to some unimportant stuff, and sometimes lousy news. Of course it depends on how we use it, but for now I don't really like current media nowadays. I don't know the situation in England yet since currently I'm staying in Vietnam. But seems in these countries, daily newspaper is waning. I can still see some newspapers shops (or street vendors to be exact) but not many people come there and get a newspaper. Can't really blame but I guess it's the effect of modern media and Internet.
Not a daily, but ...... The Village Voice Oct. 6, 1955 - Aug. 31, 2018 R.I.P. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/31/17805964/village-voice-shut-down-closed For 63 years, New York’s most venerated alt-weekly, the Village Voice, has been an institution — not just for the city but for several generations of writers and critics whose careers were launched or inspired by the groundbreaking writing on art and popular culture found in its pages. On the Friday before Labor Day, Village Voice staffers found out the paper was being shut down. According to Gothamist, the paper’s owner, Peter Barbey, told the staff in a phone call that “due to the business realities, we’re going to stop publishing Village Voice new material.” Some staff members are being retained to “wind things down” and migrate the Voice’s archive online. The rest have been let go. Barbey, a member of one of the wealthiest families in America, is currently the CEO and president of Reading Eagle Company, which also owns the Reading Eagle newspaper and the WEEU 830 AM radio station, both based in Reading, Pennsylvania. Barbey bought the paper in 2015 from Voice Media Group. Almost exactly a year ago, on August 22, 2017, the paper announced that it would cease publishing a physical printed copy, which had for decades been available from ubiquitous red distribution boxes on New York’s street corners. The last printed issue of the Voice was dated September 21, 2017. But apparently the move to digital wasn’t enough to save the publication. Gothamist reported that Barbey told the staff, ”I bought the Village Voice to save it, this isn’t exactly how I thought it was going to end up. I’m still trying to save the Village Voice.” According to the Columbia Journalism Review, he also indicated that selling the paper wasn’t possible until this shutdown was made; why that would be case isn’t clear.
My local paper, the Star - Democrat used to publish 6 days a week (all except Saturdays) and they've now dropped Thursdays. And cut down on the paper size. It'll be the size of the Sporting News before long. The death of classifieds is what may be presaging the death of newspapers. The Star-Democrat used to have 5 -6 pages of classifieds. If it weren't for needing a source for public notices, I think there would be no classifieds anymore.
If you're interested in how newspapers and reporting are doing in the Intermountain West, then I recommend this piece by a friend of mine (Kenton Bird) in the High Country News. Something he stresses is the absence of weeklies in several counties, because that's the place where (often) city councils and school boards are covered more in-depth. The whole issue of the HCN this week is about journalism in the west.
I'm wondering if there's an uptick in newspapers happening. Cal Newport (of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism fame) seems to be leading a bit of a groundswell. Personally, I've gone to the point of stopping almost all online news reporting and subscribing to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (no there aren't avalanches, or even small hills, here). I'm getting 7 days a week for $24.95 and loving it. My morning coffee with the paper, before I've even gone into the room where my phone and laptop sleep for the night, has become cathartic. Apparently the local paper has started doing so well in the last year or two that they're having to hire more delivery people and have added a couple of local writers to the staff (the Sunday edition gets puffed up in size by adding articles from sources like NerdWallet).
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/...on=click&module=Editors Picks&pgtype=Homepage The legendary black newspaper of Chicagp goes completely digital. Used to buy that on occasion in the 90s. Their coverage of local and state politics was terrific. After more than a century, The Chicago Defender will cease its print editions after Wednesday, the newspaper’s owner has announced. The Defender will continue its digital operation, according to Hiram E. Jackson, chief executive of Real Times Media, which owns The Defender and other black newspapers around the country. He said the move would allow the news organization to adapt to a fast-changing, highly-challenging media environment that has upended the entire newspaper industry. “It is an economic decision,” Mr. Jackson said, “but it’s more an effort to make sure that The Defender has another 100 years.”
The Spokesman-Review out of Spokane has reacted to the downturn in advertising by cancelling the Saturday print edition. It's still online that day and some of the content is in print still on Friday and some on Sunday (and some, neither). This past weekend was the first with no Saturday paper; they intend it to be permanent, though I wonder how that will hold up during high school football season, as those editions seem likely to be popular.
@Ismitje Newsday (my newspaper) says that next year the Salt Lake Tribune will only publish once a week.
Interesting. I am not in the Salt Lake market - never have been - but have used it for research and we have family in the area in addition to my rooting interest in RSL, which prompts me to read it periodically. It has an important history in the Salt Lake Valley as the non-LDS sanctioned/affiliated paper, in contrast to the Deseret News. I wonder how the D-News is doing by comparison?
Because of the large Ukrainian-American community in Spokane, the Spokesman-Review has had a reporter on the ground in Kyiv and elsewhere in the country since a bit before the war started. The paper says it is the smallest one in the world with a fulltime correspondent in Ukraine. It makes for some very interesting reading, different angles from much of the national coverage.
Outside of its core delivery area, the Spokane Spokesman-Review is shifting to delivery by US Postal Service carrier rather than home delivery. This is a bit different from mailing the paper; they'll still send papers to hubs like ours each day, just to the post office for inclusion with that day's mail rather than posting it from Spokane for delivery later. While I think this is a creative solution to an ongoing challenge, it means getting a Sunday paper on Saturday with my mail. Not a Saturday paper since they don't print one that day, but an "early Sunday" edition. I am not interested in a Sunday paper missing news and sports from both days, and they do not have a subscription option for weekday only. This probably means I will cancel my subscription when the shift happens on the first of the new year.