The Sky is Falling
In the past couple of days, there have been 3 major announcements in the newspaper industry.
- Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, is laying off 10% of the company.
- The Tribune Company (owners of such papers as The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune) is undergoing “sharp cutbacks,” by “printing fewer papers and employing fewer journalists” across all 12 of their newspapers.
- Scripps announced the Rocky Mountain News (their flagship paper and a very strong visual paper) and their 50% stake in the Denver Newspaper Agency are both for sale.
According to the big-wigs, the lack of success with converting from print advertising to online advertising is the problem. Well fix it!
Baron Sekiya, a recently laid-off photojournalist, equates the newspaper industry’s problem with the recent auto industry problem.
If I owned a newspaper, I would…
…concentrate on telling compelling stories, and the bottom line would naturally follow.
