A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades

From The Awl:

Every six months, the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases data about newspapers and how many people subscribe to them. And then everyone writes a story about how some newspapers declined some amount over the year previous. Well, that's no way to look at data! It's confusing—and it obscures larger trends. So we've taken chunks of data for the major newspapers, going back to 1990, and graphed it, so you can see what's actually happened to newspaper circulation.

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Employees own their own newspaper

The West Highland Free Press is laying claim to being the first newspaper in Britain to be owned by its employees.

From last week, 10 of its staff officially became shareholders in the trust that now owns the weekly, which is renowned for its forthright independent coverage of affairs in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

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How to (Voluntarily) Become an Ex-Journalist

John Zhu offers advice, including "What Fields Can You Get into With Your Journalism Skills."

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Employees in shock after sweeping cuts announced

The mood was bleak as nearly 30 Huron Daily Tribune employees learned earlier this week they will be laid off at the end of December.

“Something like this hurts,” said Ira Pyrek, a pressman who has been with the Tribune for 34 years. “There’s no other way to put it. It’s hard.”

All employees received a letter from the publisher on their desk Monday morning, notifying them that as of the end of December, the Tribune is consolidating operations with our sister paper, The Midland Daily News.

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Fraternity Accused of Stealing 10,000 Student Newspapers to Cover Up Date Rape Story

A fraternity on the University of Arizona campus has been accused of sabotaging 10,000 campus newspapers in order to cover up a small item in which a woman alleged having been drugged and possibly sexually assaulted at one of the frat’s parties.

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How To Survive A Media Layoff

Erin Carlson has advice:

Before packing up your boxes and peacing out, if you haven't done so already, forward information for every professional contact, source and fellow media person to your personal email accounts.

Send them a blind-copied note en masse -- or reach out individually -- so they are aware of your situation and know to send any leads your direction.

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Newspaper industry may be fading, but ships still sail the seas

Rex Smith writes:

So I was startled to read a New York magazine headline this week asserting that Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The New York Times, had compared print media to the Titanic. That was distressing: If Sulzberger believes we’re doomed, I may need to rethink my metaphor, not to mention update my resume.

But it was a typical case of the limited space of a headline being unable to capture the full meaning of a story. What Sulzberger had said wasn’t that newspapers were plunging to icy depths, but that some of our industry’s detractors may be following the Titanic Fallacy.

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Hear That Ticking? That’s The Newsprint Time Bomb For Newspapers – Prices Are On The Up And Producers Are Looking For Big Increases

Newspapers are doing better financially these days but it all is coming from the cost side, and high among those cost savings is the reduced spend on newsprint. But that particular euphoria may be ending for newsprint prices in North America are on the up -- 7.4% since September 1 according to FOEX Indexes, and the producers are looking for major increases before the year is out.

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SF Chronicle goes glossy to attract readers, ads

With its circulation falling faster than any other major U.S. newspaper's, the San Francisco Chronicle is determined to set the pace in a flashier way: It's about to become the first general-interest daily to print its editions on high-quality glossy paper.

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More Layoffs at the Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee reports 51 employees in the paper's circulation department will lose their jobs when the company restructures its delivery functions.

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West Australian Newspapers sitting pretty as ads return

PERTH newspaper group West Australian Newspapers Holdings has joined the growing chorus of media companies heralding the signs of an advertising revenue comeback for 2010.

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Laid-off Tampa newspaper artist reinvents himself

When editorial cartoonist David O'Keefe got his pink slip from the Tampa Tribune it almost took his breath away.

He'd spent 27 years at the Trib, the first 10 driving trucks as he waited for a newsroom opening. Once inside the art department his flair for compressing politicians, entertainers and athletes into wicked clay sculptures and caricatures found a national audience. The likes of Time, Sports Illustrated, and Mad magazines showcased his work. His footing seemed secure.

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The path of free content

Katrina M. Mendolera writes:

Last Wednesday, Newsday joined the paid content revolution by shutting articles behind locked doors.

A journey to the Web site finds summaries of articles that act as teasers, enticing a reader to take out the credit card and lay it all down – subscribe or miss out on the latest juicy story or gossip. But unless you’re a Newsday subscriber or customer of Cablevision, a cable and Internet provider and the paper’s parent, the full articles are off-limits.

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Toronto Star launches restructuring

The Toronto Star has launched what its publisher says will likely be the biggest restructuring in the newspaper's history by offering voluntary buyouts to employees in all divisions of the company.

John Cruickshank told employees in a memo Tuesday that the broad reworking of the company “will affect every job in every corner of the organization” and could include layoffs.

He also said that Canada's largest-circulation daily paper is also exploring the possibility of contracting out some work in both copy editing and pagination work. The plans could expand to include editorial content and other production, he added.

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Tribune Co. newspapers won't use AP next week

Tribune Co., owner of The Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and several other news outlets, will not use most Associated Press content next week to test whether the financially struggling company can do without it, according to a story on the Chicago Tribune's Web site.

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Major Detroit Newspaper Takes Cues From Advertisers

A series of articles that appeared in Sunday's Detroit Free Press about Medicare open enrollment probably didn't seem unusual to readers amid the national health-care debate.

But the idea for the articles didn't come from an editor or reporter at the newspaper. It came from health insurer Humana Inc., which bought an ad next to one of the articles, according to executives at the newspaper and its publisher. The origin of the series shows how financial pressures are challenging some of the firmest tenets of newspapering.

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UK shows the US how it's done in the online journalism arena

On Sunday, Observer columnist Peter Preston raised a difficult but pertinent question: in the current economic climate which has set about ravaging much of newspaper industry on both sides of the Atlantic, who is suffering more ... the British or American press? Whether his claims are prejudiced, patriotic or otherwise, Preston does share some compelling data.

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East Valley Tribune will stop publishing Dec. 31

The East Valley Tribune newspaper will stop publishing Dec. 31, the bankrupt parent company Freedom Communications reported Monday morning.

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Recession, Revolution and a Leaner Times

Clark Hoyt writes:

IN his autobiography “The Good Times,” Russell Baker described the Times newsroom he joined in 1954 as “comically overstaffed.” Baker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington reporter and columnist, quoted a colleague’s explanation for all the idle reporters playing bridge and working crossword puzzles:

Adolph Ochs, who bought The Times in 1896 and turned it into a colossus of journalism, “always liked to have enough people around to cover the story when the Titanic sinks,” said Meyer Berger, a legendary Times reporter.

The era of playing cards and reading Dostoyevsky while waiting for the big assignment is long gone.

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Trib solidifes standing, overtakes Post-Gazette for first time

Newspaper industry maven John Morton rifled through his memory for cities still served by two dailies, given the recent deaths of several newspapers.

"Hold on. Let me make sure I'm up to date and haven't missed anything today," said Morton, chuckling at his gallows humor. "Two-newspaper towns are rare. But you still have Boston and New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago."

And Pittsburgh.

In fact, the Tribune-Review solidified its standing in Western Pennsylvania last week by overtaking the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the first time. The Trib topped the P-G in Saturday circulation and is beginning to pull even with Monday-through-Friday editions.

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Toronto Paper Attacks Coverage of Its Troubles

Ian Austen writes:

During its 11-year history, The National Post of Toronto has never shied away from using its news pages to present bold opinions, either for self-promotion or to challenge critics. It happened again on Saturday, with a front-page editorial assailing other news outlets for their coverage of the newspaper’s financial troubles after a Toronto court prevented the paper’s closing.

In the 750-word editorial, under the headline “The rumours of our demise . . .,” The Post’s editors called most of the news coverage leading up to the court hearing a “firestorm of uninformed speculation” that was “ignited by one paragraph in a 33-page court filing pointing out it was doubtful The National Post could sustain operations in the absence of funding for its current — albeit minor — losses.”

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