Former editor of USA Today, and recently-retired director of the Newseum, Peter Pritchard will speak Tuesday evening at the Wadsworth Mansion in the first Party with a Purpose of 2009, sponsored by the Middlesex County Community Foundation. I spoke with Pritchard Saturday, and the entire interview will be featured on Eye on the Air, Friday January 29, WESU, 88.1 FM (wesu.org) from 1-2 PM.
Pritchard is not sanguine about the survival of daily print newspapers. As a former editor, and longtime journalist, he sees a downward cycle in which loss of readership and advertising, creates loss of staff and coverage, which in turn results in lower readership and less advertising.
"The transition to digital delivery is just wrenching," Pritchard said. "The problem is economics. They just can't get enough revenue from their digital products to replace the revenue from their print products. That's the main problem and I don't see it getting better anytime soon."
Pritchard sees the loss of traditional sources of advertisng as being a major factor for local dailies. He points to the merger of retail chains as being a loss, as fewer stores meant fewer ads. In addition, the creation of Craigslist meant that a regular, and profitable revenue stream was gone.
"They lost unbelieveable amounts of revenue that they used to get from classified advertising," Pritchard said. "At one point it was almost 40% of overall revenue for some newspapers. They also have a problem because they never charged enough for the actual print edition. As a result they never had enough revenue from circulation. They should have started raising prices years ago."
Pritchard sees the result of web-based news sources, and the resulting loss of revenue as a tsunami that has touched virtually every newspaper in the country.
"Everybody is suffering to some degree. It's hard to find a newspaper in this country that isn't smaller than it was ten years ago," Pritchard said.
Pritchard is quite certain that the hunger for information will not disappear. He thinks we will be less likely to get that information from a general interest source like a daily newspaper, and instead find it in a variety of sources, some which will be linked to our partisan leanings.
"We could be heading for a future where there are a multitude of electronic sources, very little print on paper situations and people will get their news from all kinds of electronic distribution sources, and all kinds of views," Pritchard said.
To hear more of Peter Pritchard's thoughts on the demise of the newspaper, attend Party With A Purpose at the Wadsworth Mansion Tuesday, and listen to Eye on the Air, WESU-FM, Friday.
16 comments:
This looks great. I no longer subscribe to a newspaper. New york times iphone app and middletown eye are totally awesome and free! is this good or bad? hmm.. i just heard that NYT will charge starting in 2011.. that makes sense. I will let my MXCC students in poli sci know about this.
How about the fact that people are just tired of one-sided reporting?
The worst nightmare for the NYT, or the Boston Globe is coming true-that people are beginning to care about the content of their dailies and are really not as dumb as these rags hoped they would be.
The propaganda tools of the Darwin-spouting Left are the victims of their own decree--survival of the fittest. ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and just lately Air America (sorry, Sen. Franken)are also finding this out the hard way. They are getting killed by Fox News. And that's the way it is.
Comedy. Love your sense of humor Gordon. Fox News saves the day. Ha!
To Anon. 7:51
Denialism is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality.
Like looking into a mirror, isn't it?
"Denialism?" You coined one Gordon. I've got two words for cats like you, "mission accomplished."
Thanks, but I cannot take credit for coining that word. I read it somewhere.
I also have two words for cats like you-but Ed won't print them!
I got it.
How about--"ONE TERM?"
Three more words, Gordo, "fair and balanced." You've outed yourself as someone himself in the throws of "denialism." "Darwin-spouting," eh? And the earth is flat, and the sun rotates around it, and Obama was born out-of-wedlock in Kenya, or is it Indonesia?
The ratings argument is evidence of nothing but a surfeit of willful ignorance.
More like survival of the feckless.
I'll agree with you that you shouldn't believe everything you read, especially in the comments section, but anyone who spent eight years believing in weapons of mass destruction, orange terror alerts, the strength and integrity of the free market, yellow-cake uranium, Blackwater, and the media giants who championed them, has no right to point fingers.
And one term? Sure, if it's all he deserves, but what's the punchline on that? Sarah Palin?
See what I mean about willful ignorance?
Oh, BTW, I noticed Ed printed your comment, so, wrong again.
Were you able to fit all that on one card-or did you need a whole deck?
Once again you pull out the ignorance card.
Talking points, talking points, talking points. Same ole stuff.Last I knew, Bush wasn't President but you Lefties have nothing else.It's called moral equivalencies--have someone look it up in the dictionary for you.Get a calendar also- this is 2010, not 2003.Let's talk again in November when all us shotgun- toting, Bible- thumping louts have our say in the polls.
I didn't pull out the "ignorance card," Mr. Anti-darwinism, I simply took pleasure in playing it.
"Talking points": what Roger Ailes distributes to the "newscasters" at Fox News every day, in place of fact.
Not "talking points": observing and reporting that a "fact" grounded in an error, and repeated again and again, is not a fact.
George Bush? It's only been a year, honey. We'll be living down his damage for decades.
Here's my moral equivalent, dude. Dropping bombs on innocent civilians is wrong whether ordered by President Bush or President Obama. Can we agree on that?
I don't think I'm the one who needs a friend with a dictionary.
Thanks for recognizing your own limitations. It makes my job easier.
Ahh...The pot calling the kettle black. Darwin spouting left...LMAO! Try watching something other than Glen Beck.
Oh,my! They're piling on now!No Conservative back-up for me?
BTW, what did the 3,000 people who in the WTC buildings do that made them guilty? Oh, that's right, it was a Bush conspiracy.
We didn't start it and collateral damage is a consequence of war.Momma don't let your babies grow up to be terrorists.
Good one Gordo. If we don't agree with you, then we're terrorists. George Bush Playbook, #53. Love that "collateral damage" business. Makes you sound like a heartless, tough guy patriot. Love to see you look some limbless little boy in the eye and say the same thing. Your true colors are showing big shot.
And if we don't agree with you, then we are racist.How about the families of 343 firefighters who lost their lives? How about the 3,000 families that lost fathers, mothers, children? You are correct, I am tough and I am a patriot, and I have seen many injured children-and not just in Time and Newsweek.
Where was your righteous indignation when Saddam was slaughtering and maiming tens of thousands of women and children? That's right, he didn't have WMD's so I guess that was OK.
33
Gordie, Gordie, Gordie.
You're setting up straw men, and knocking them down, bam, bam, bam.
You were the one who brought up moral equivalents, apparently without understanding what they mean, because, you're using them in your latest post.
Saddam Hussein, my anti-intellectual chum, had nothing to do with 9/11, despite what George Bush, et.al., said again and again.
Shall we go after all the world's bully's and tyrants? All? Be careful before you answer because a lot of dead Iranians died at the hands of George Bush, on a mission from God, so maybe he and Saddam ought to share a cozy cabin in Hell.
I don't believe I called you a racist? Guilty conscience?
And how about those innocent 3,000 who died on 9/11? Which president was it who ignored specific warnings about al qaeda?
As for my righteous indignation, that's between you and me and "my pet goat."
Your "pet goat.' I should have figured.
Thanks. It was fun.
P.S.- I believe it was Bill Clinton who ignored the early warnings about al qaeda.
Fun indeed. Let's do it again sometime. I'd guess you and I have more in common than we might guess.
We both like to argue about things we're passionate about.
Cheers.
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