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The demise of a printed newspaper
The daily Christian Science Monitor won’t be printed daily anymore. CSM is the first national newspaper to succumb to the forces of the web and cut back the publication of its print version, with it now appearing only on weekends. The Boston-based paper’s circulation has dropped from its 1970 peak of 230,000 to 50,000, but its online presence has soared.
As a reporter who drools over newsprint, this death of the hard copy cuts me to the quick. There’s nothing like the serendipity of finding stories by skimming pages in a newspaper instead of clicking on the biggest headline on a web page – you end up reading things in a printed paper that you wouldn’t give five seconds thought to online. And if newspapers go online, what will we wrap fish in?
Industry gurus have been predicting that this would happen, and CSM will not be the last. I’m assuming most of you read your news online entirely?
back to top29 Comments to “The demise of a printed newspaper”
I agree….
It’s hard to wrap my freshly turned green bowls in…
The Internet.
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And wash windows..
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And use to mulch and preemptively de-weed our gardens.
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Oh, and don’t forget the hats and boats.
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And as a child/teen in Mexico, I knew how to make a kite using newspaper and flour paste and bambo “slices” — yeah, too bad there will be less newspaper around.
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I get most of my news online, but I do get the local paper because they only put some of their content online. (And occasionally they’ll have a picture of one of my sons at a school or Cub Scout activity!)
Sunday at church I was getting pointers on what to write/what not to write about to the child I just signed up to sponsor (through VisionTrust), and someone who had been to their village in Liberia was mentioning lack of newspapers as one of the differences between there and here. He had bought something and asked for newspaper to wrap it in, and was told they had no such thing. And if they did have a newspaper, they would be handing it around so everyone could read it, not using it to wrap things in.
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I read many papers, publications and magazines around the world, its fast, and easy online. We haven’t purchased a paper for years.
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And to use in the worm box for the winter’s supply of worms for the frog.
I prefer a newspaper for reading. I live in an area with a very depressed economy as the woods are shut down more and more to logging and not far from a large paper products mill that seems to be closing and moving out of the area. I hope they don’t decide we don’t need toilet paper anymore, though, having lived in other countries…
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No more excerpts from “Science and Health”? Whatsoever will I do now?
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All kidding aside, I’ve worked in newspapers for some 30 years now. The sight of newspapers lying on front lawns in our neighborhoods will soon look quite “quaint,” I’m afraid.
And although we’re focusing more and more on the web editions, it’s being done with fewer and fewer resources. Job cuts are rampant among newspapers everywhere, it’s wave after wave of layoffs and buyouts, it never seems to level out. Those of us who love newspaper work and are still hanging in there are having to adjust to the reality of next-to-no job security.
There’s just been an inability in the industry to get ahead of the curve, to anticipate the media changes & figure out how to profit (or even survive) in the new age of internet news.
Heck, even I go to my computer first for my news now — and on most days I don’t even open the folded edition of the large metro I have subscribed to for decades (and feel too guilty to cancel).
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I will be sad if WORLD ever goes completely online.
There’s nothing like having an actual copy in my hands.
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One of our Saturday evening deals used to be buying The Sunday Oregonian so we could clip coupons.
Even if they put their coupons online, the savings don’t justify clipping pieces out of my monitor.
Oh well.
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Maybe I’ll just start making virtual bowls. They don’t need to dry….
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I subscribe to the local newspaper but seldom do more with it than toss it in the recycling, or cover the table to carve a pumpkin.
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Alas, although I’m young, I still prefer a physical newspaper as opposed to the online version of it. I am thrilled each Sunday to pick up my 5 lb. NY Times and read it at my leisure in a comfy chair. I can skip forward and back, and read it in whatever order I want. Though I always save the best section for last: Week in Review. I am never without at least one newspaper in my backpack.
I have learned to read the Atlanta Journal online now that I no longer get the print version. I also read other papers online like the LA Times, SF Chronicle, Boston Glove, and Dallas News. But if I had my preference, it would be for the “real” thing, like Coke.
I know print newspapers are dying. I suspect only a few will survive (WSJ, NY Times, USA Today). I will miss them.
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Oops!
Boston Globe
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I actually think it may be the local papers that manage to survive, as they provide content not generally found elsewhere on the web. But time will tell.
RPN (”toss it in the recyling”), you make me sad.
Anlir (”the real thing, like Coke”), you make be happy.
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I suspect the American metro papers will eventually resort to all manner of trickery to lure readers, as was done across the pond. (Page 2 Girls, anyone?)
For years Garland Texas had its own paper. I’ve always pitied the small suburban papers like our Garland Daily. Nowhere near the staff or coverage of the big metro papers (in the case of the Garland Daily News that would be the Dallas Morning News or Times Herald) but you wound up paying the same price as the big metro paper.
In the age of blogs and alternative media we can presume unless they modify their way of reaching and retaining readership the print papers will vanish.
And as I write that sentence I think of the old Clark Gable Doris Day film where he was a working newspaperman taking her college journalism class (and failing!)
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We have subscribed to the local paper of our community forever. My wife clips coupons and we even buy the Charlotte paper occasionally to get them.
In Virginia, we took both the Washington Post and Times. The Post for coupons and advertisements and the Times for news. I still take the Washington Times weekly edition. I don’t trust the NYT child here in Hendersonville. It is good for local news.
I don’t get much news from the internet. I scan Drudge first thing in the morning to see what happened overnight, if anything. But I actually click on few of the items.
I watch FoxNews in the evenings. I hear ABC News for five minutes from noon to three every afternoon, but try to ignore it.
“Even though McCain is hopelessly behind, he’s campaigning in Ohio today, Sherry.”
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The Indianapolis Star has a novel way to keep people reading the print version: the website is awful. For local news online, the TV stations are much better.
So, for the time being, I’m still getting it in print.
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I don’t find all the stories online for my local paper. Plus it takes too long on dial-up to get much without wasting a lot of time. I’m with Anlir. I love getting my paper and reading it at my leisure. I get the local paper and appreciate the advertisements and coupons as well as information on meetings etc.
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I have a daily subscription to our local paper, if only to read what other people say about me.
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I used to subscribe to the Washington Times NWE but it was always three weeks out of date by the time I received it. The local Pacific Daily News (Guam) is an overpriced liberal rag so I refuse to pay for it much less read it.I read all of my news online now and unless I return to the USA I will continue to do so.
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It wasn’t the forces of the web exclusively that caused the demise since other, much better daily newspaper subscriptions are increasing despite the web. It was a bad paper first and foremost.
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#22- Outsassed, my friend!
It would appear they have nothing at all to say about you in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald .
Unless this is your hometown daily newspaper, then I gotcha fer shur. I would worry what people are saying too.
Jeffrey Stiles, 21, is charged with shooting 19-year-old William A. Wilson in the chest with a .357 magnum during a drug transaction in the victim’s car.
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If you read the Telegraph Herald on a regular basis you’ll find out much more about me than your fantasies, Lumpy.
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That makes absolutely no sense.
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Of all the newspapers to go, I am glad it was the Christian Science Monitor. It was farther to the left than the NY Times and the Boston Globe Democrat.
If Obama wins I think it will actually help left wing newspapers, because finally they will have the green light to say something nice about America again.
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You know how Jesus said “Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”?
Well it seems like the main stream media has a similar mandate about the coming Democratic messiah, “Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means promote America until Democrat rule is accomplished.”
Obama has not come to destroy the self-fulfilling prophesy in the left wing media, but to fulfill it.
Everyone, please pay attention to how the media changes one day after the inauguration. It is really something to behold.
Prior to Clinton being inaugurated, every other word from the papers was ‘recession, recession, recession”. But the very day Clinton took over it was ‘recovery, recovery, recovery” and they never said the word recession again.
Everyone should record all the dire news before the election and the positive news after, because without this evidence no one will believe you. That fact that most people miss this is even more amazing.
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