Traditional media on life support?
August 10, 2008 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
Recently, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, announced that unless it can get 200 non-union employees to accept a buy-out by October 1st, 2008, the paper will be sold.
Is the writing on the wall for traditional media? I know that locally, we’re seeing a huge amount of media convergence and downsizing. I know there’s always been some of that shifting going on behind the scenes, but it seems like it’s getting more and more prevalent these days.
The offer is coming at a time, the paper says, when ad revenues are declining, online media is growing in leaps and bounds, and the US economy is taking a hit.
Is this it? Are we seeing the beginning of the end of traditional media?
Where do you get your news these days, and maybe even more telling, when was the last time you actually purchased a newspaper and read it section by section?
Edited to Add: The New York Times has another story about the decline of traditional media, in the business section. The graphs that stood out to me the most were:
Experts say the lack of interest reflects a sharp shift in the last year toward a more pessimistic long-term view of the industry. The loss of ads has accelerated, and few expect a rebound even when the economy recovers.
“The story has changed fundamentally,” said Ken Doctor, a newspaper analyst with Outsell, a research firm. “A year ago, the conventional wisdom was, ‘Yep, there are problems out there, but there’s still significant value.’ Now, it’s ‘Run away.’ ” [source]
I have a friend there. He’s taking the buyout. He’s an awesome reporter. And he’s thinking of going to a national broadcast news outlet. I hope he does for his own sake, because he’s a fantastic guy and a great journalistic talent. But it DOES say something about print news, that this Pulitzer-Prize-winning lifelong print journalist is going to TV. Sad stuff.
On the other hand, the Star-Ledger has just launched Ledger Live – http://www.nj.com/ledgerlive – a fabulous daily newspaper vlog – which sounds counterintuitive but is really a great look at newspapers taking the plunge into newer media the right way. Whatever decision the Newhouse family make about selling the paper, I hope LL sticks.
Would like to hear your examples of local media downsizing and converging.
@Sarah – good to hear from a NJ’ers perspective what’s going on in the local scene. Interesting that your friend is headed to Nat’l TV… it all blows my mind.
@Buzz – CityTV moved all of their news to Toronto and cut everyone who was connected to the 6 pm news. Entertainment beats were cut before that. The Province has lost reporters and people still there (I’m thinking Jeannie Read right now) are covering more topics under their “regular” beat. They’re using wire coverage almost entirely for certain sections and topics. The Sun has faced the same problem. They’ve cut some reporters – the Hollywood North reporter whose name is escaping me at the moment – and had others – Yvonne Zacharias is in her place now, along with everything else Yvonne has to cover – add the coverage to their plate. Maurice Bridge moved city side at the sun and is now covering the work of two reporters. The education reporter is stretched so thin she doesn’t have the time to cover some of the local stories because there are too many regional “traumas” as she called them. There are several producers I know that are not only doing the media shuffle that always occurs but are moving away, or looking at other avenues because their gig changed or went sideways.
I could go on. It’s happening all over.
I don’t know much about the radio side as the majority of my work focused on lifestyle products that would work better in print or on TV, but I know it’s happening a lot where print and TV are concerned.
I get you on the CityTV thing.
Sadly, Jeannie Read passed away last year.
PacPress has long been behind in the convergence. They have token blogs that are difficult to find and not regularly updated.
@Buzz – so very sad to hear about Jeannie. She was always one of my favourites to work with.
You’re completely right about PacPress being behind on their uptake of SocMed. they have terrible blogs (and I hesitate to even call them that) and are stuck in an old school form of media. Unfortunate really.