PJNet

A map with a related article entitled: As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero gives a graphic overview of the state of the newspaper crisis in the USA.

The article and the graphic are a grim reminder of what is happening. It’s a reminder why so many folks, including all of us at the Center for Sustainable Journalism, are trying to find new models.

Here is the graphic’s introduction:

Heavy debt has dragged several newspaper companies into bankruptcy. The industry’s dwindling revenues have forced some money-losing papers to close, and papers that are for sale are having trouble finding buyers. Experts say that before long, a major American city could be left without a daily paper.

Here is the key paragraph from the related story:

“In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets,” said Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, who analyzes the industry.

Here is a quote from Joel Kramer:

“It would be a terrible thing for any city for the dominant paper to go under, because that’s who does the bulk of the serious reporting,” said Joel Kramer, former editor and publisher of The Star Tribune and now the editor and chief executive of MinnPost .com, an online news organization in Minneapolis.

“Places like us would spring up,” he said, “but they wouldn’t be nearly as big. We can tweak the papers and compete with them, but we can’t replace them.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Joel Kramer, Journalism, Journalism Business Models, New York Times, Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.