The more things change, the more things stay the same (or so the saying goes).
I found a draft of a blog post I was planning, back in 2014. If only I had known what the next few years would bring.
This is from that forgotten draft:
" Newspapers shrink. Newspaper employees in the thousands have been laid off. Some newspapers are no longer published in hard copy. Prices go up. Some papers in the area (not ours - not yet) are no longer delivering daily. Our paper here in the Binghamton, New York area is now a mashup of local and a national publication, USA Today. And, service is more and more nonexistent. No service given by a dying industry to the remainder of their faithful customers.
I really wonder if the industry will exist at all five years from now. We need journalists for many reasons. Our society will be poorer for the disappearance of the newspaper. Is it too late for the industry to turn things around? More and more, I think the answer is "yes, it's too late."
So, here in 2022, I can tell you that our local newspaper is still publishing, but, it seems, just barely.
News stories, more and more, seem to concentrate on examples happening in the Hudson Valley, a part of New York State over 100 miles from where I live in New York. Restaurants closing? Schools experiencing difficulties? Whatever the topic, they rarely aren't interviewing anyone local.
Our local newspaper printing plant closed years ago (it's currently owned by Binghamton University and is, at this time, hosting a COVID testing site) so if we have bad weather the newspaper doesn't get delivered. Instead, we are expected to go online and read the website. There is no refund. Over the last thirty days, there have been several times we haven't gotten the paper until the next day, if at all.
They do advise us by email that we won't get the paper, but no worries! We can read it online! But there is something about reading something you hold in your hands, or can take (ahem!) into another room to read.
For Christmas and New Years 2021, the newspaper published a combined edition, three days all crammed into one little paper for each holiday. Or, should I add, one paper for the price of three, because they charged subscribers three papers for that one. Want more than the print edition? Well, subscriber, go online.
And, best (or worst) of all, our newspaper will no longer be publishing on Saturdays, starting in March.
We need journalists more than ever. But with the death of a lot of local papers, including many in small towns, we don't have the journalism we need in print form anymore. I saw an interview Sunday that explained that over 2,200 local newspapers have folded since the early 21st century. In fact, there is a bill called the "Local Journalism Sustainability Act" before Congress right now, which has some bipartisan support.
Perhaps I'm old fashioned, given that I'm in my late 60's, but I would miss my daily paper if it disappeared.
But, most of all, I would miss the local investigative reporting we so need in this country. The local scandal. For those in small towns, the police blotter. Even the "Mrs. Smith went shopping with Mrs. Jones and then had lunch at the Burger Barn" I thought was so cheesy when I lived in the countryside of Northwest Arkansas years ago.
It wasn't cheesy.
Is it too late to revive the local newspaper?
...If Frank Gannett could see his empire today!
ReplyDeleteI do think we still need newspapers, but they need money to operate. Local newspapers particularly need support. I know it's not much, but I pay for the local newspaper, and I give a monthly donation to the local NPR station. My husband pays for three (inter)national papers: The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Salt Lake Tribune--even though he works for a university and can get them through the library. He wants to help fund these news sources.
ReplyDeleteYes, our newspaper is thin thin thin and instantly out of date because we have other, more immediate news sources. A big change/Carol C
ReplyDeleteMy husband was a newspaper editor of many years before his retirement. Indeed, when we married 47 years ago he owned one of those small weekly papers you speak of and I know how much that paper meant to the people of the community. The industry has always evolved and continues to do so. Print gives way to pixels or images on a screen. Is it a transition to something better? Time will tell, I guess.
ReplyDeleteWe're in our 80's and feel a little guilty about subscribing to the Washington Post print edition, but there's just something about reading a "real" newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I first got married my husband and would read the paper together every morning, haven't done that in many years now.
ReplyDeleteIt's scary if you think about it. Do we no longer have local journalists looking into corruption and crime and things that need attention? I think not. And I wonder who helped to precipitate the loss of the local person digging around, looking for problems that might not get noticed. It's not all the internet. These people should still exist on the internet somewhere.
ReplyDeleteWait until you see what a typical NYC newspaper has become. Shrunk down to half of what they used to be.
ReplyDeleteI love the newspaper, but no longer subscribe due to how much it costs. I used to buy the Sunday paper at the Dollar Tree, but the newspaper cut them off to only 10 copies, and I'm not going to jostle a line to get one of them when the store first opens! My father worked in publishing, for newspapers, then self-employeed. When he worked in SF he took Greyhound, and there was a morning newspaper (The Chronicle) coin box at the stop (top of our hill/street) he would read, then on the way home he read the evening one (The Examiner) on the way home, bring them both home. When I was growing up the paper was delivered free to every address. Oh, they had paying subscribers, but they didn't stop delivery if you didn't pay. My mother tipped the paper boy (a classmate) every Christmas. My father knew they didn't need to charge, that they make their money from advertisements. I do miss a daily paper though. If only for the crossword. App ones are just not the same!
ReplyDeleteMary took a course in journalism when she was in high school, and the first question the teacher asked was "what is the business of newspapers?" Mary was the only one who got it right: to sell newspapers. People don't want news that's 12-24 hours old, and that's what the newspaper is selling. If they can go to the newspaper's website and see the news happen as it happens, and they can see it updated throughout the day, they'd rather have that. Advertisers see that, and start moving their ads online.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as for local reporting and analysis...that's what bloggers do... It doesn't require a bachelor's degree in journalism to share your opinion of what's happening. The days of the big national columnists is gone. In their place is an entire host of online journalists on every side of every issue. The only difference between a national or local columnist and a blogger is a job: most bloggers don't get paid for their opinion. The ones that do get paid either sell ads on their blogsites, offer premium content (newsletters or podcasts) on something like Locals or Anchor, maybe videos on YouTube, Rumble, or some other video platform.
Journalism isn't dead just because the newspapers are.
Weekly newspapers sell. Monthly magazines sell. If people want local newspapers, people need to buy them instead of depending on the Internet for news (it won't be free any more if the newspapers die off!).
ReplyDeleteI read paper papers and electronic papers. We need to support good hour alism.
ReplyDelete