Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Not dead yet

John Morton says small town daily newspapers are making money and doing well.

Lost amid the barrage of downbeat news about newspapers closing or filing for bankruptcy is this central fact: There are a thousand daily newspapers in this country — 70 percent of the total — that for the most part remain solidly profitable and are in no danger of collapse, despite a lot of loose talk about newspapers being on the verge of extinction.


These are the newspapers with circulations of 50,000 or less — their average circulation is less than 12,000 — that serve readers and advertisers in the nation's smaller towns and cities. For millions of Americans and across great swaths of the nation, they are the newspaper business, not the larger metropolitan dailies whose troubles we hear so much about.

Read the whole thing here.

The title of Morton's piece - Not Dead Yet -- is based on the classic Monty Python bit I embedded below. Watch the video and see if you think Morton is being totally serious about the health of small town papers.





Hat tip: Fading to Black
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice!

Our paper was profitable, then mcclatchy bought it, then we never saw the profits...then they cut just about everyone, cut expeses to save money, still dont see no profit... the building is dark the local paper is crap... basically took a solid running paper and trashed it.

Hurray!! so yeah, even though we were saying we are running fine, they took the ol club and knocked us out

Anonymous said...

We are a family/ESOP paper and are making money. We make smart decisions on expenses and utilize the revenues wisely. I came from McClatchy and am saddened by what has happened to my paper, The Modesto Bee. It is not us smaller, well run companies that are getting killed, it is the large soul-less conglomerates that focused on yields over quality.
Ken

Kevin Gregory said...

There is no doubt MNI's $2 billion in corporate debt is sucking the lifeblood out of the smaller papers in the McClatchy chain.

Anonymous said...

knight ridder did it and McClatchy is doin it too!

Anonymous said...

Star-Telegram is having a company picnic, Bring on Food and Games everyone gets to leave at 3pm and by the way you won't get paid for the hours you miss.

Anonymous said...

False, if you go to the picnic it is on company time. This post was not made by a Star Telegram employee because had it been, they would have known that it was moved to Thursday due to forecasted rain.

Nice try you troll.