Slashdot Mirror
Decline In US Newspaper Readership Accelerates
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that US newspaper circulation has hit its lowest level in seven decades, as papers across the country lost 10.6 percent of their paying readers from April through September, compared with a year earlier. Online, newspapers are still a success — but only in readership, not in profit. Ads on newspaper Internet sites sell for pennies on the dollar compared with ads in their ink-on-paper cousins. 'Newspapers have ceased to be a mass medium by any stretch of the imagination,' says Alan D. Mutter, a former journalist and cable television executive who now consults and writes a blog called Reflections of a Newsosaur. According to Mutter only 13 percent of Americans, or about 39 million, now buy a daily newspaper, down from 31 percent in 1940. 'Publishers who think their businesses are going to live or die according to the number of bellybuttons they can deliver probably will see their businesses die,' writes Mutter. 'The smart ones will get busy on Plan B, assuming there is a Plan B and it's not already too late.' Almost without exception, the papers that lost the least readers or even gained readership are the nation's smallest daily newspapers which tend to focus almost all of their limited resources on highly local news that is not covered by larger outside organizations and have a lock on local ad markets."
Really? The GP should be subjected to George Bush because he chooses to get his news from an alternative source? It'd be one thing if he said that he never gets any news, ever, but then again, no one deserves George Bush, and he clearly demonstrated that he is still wired up.
I personally get my news from a ton of line sources. The wire services, but also blogs. And I get information from a bunch of those, from the leftists of the Daily Kos, to the right-wingers of Little Green Footballs, to the libertarians of lewrockwell.com, and many, many, in between. The great thing about it is these guys do not pretend to have an air of non-ideology. They straight up tell you their biases; no need for subtle hints, omitted facts, or turns of phrases to find out. You know straight away. And with all the conflicting views, you can build up a nice picture of the world.
SSC
I had the same problem with my local papers' free edition, until I involved the local police and littering charges. Oddly, they took their pocketbook more seriously than my time.
So - you are ignorant about newspapers, and proud of that. I have never ridden on a train...so they must be useless as well. Right?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
No, it is because the majority of the people that voted for Obama simply can't read. They are just looking for a payday.