UPDATED & BUMPED:I forgot to mention this about some newspapers in Connecticut:
Meanwhile in New York, Journal Register Co., publisher of the New Haven (Connecticut) Register and other newspapers, won approval to continue paying basic operating costs, including employee salaries and benefits and newspaper delivery contracts. Lawyers representing lenders made no objections.
HT: Jammie Wearing Fool @ www.jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com
Wow!
Usually, this is a Friday feature here on Right View From The Left Coast.
But, only yesterday and today, three more newspapers are either filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or being prepped to be sold and or closed down.
The latest is the San Francisco Chronicle, the flagship Hearst newspaper.
To be fair, the Chronicle did not declare Chapter 11. No, they basically said that they will do more cuts and eventually put the newspaper on the block for sale. If no buyer is found, it could very well join its sister newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer into the ash bin of newspaper history.
Two other newspapers did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, owned by the same parent company, went the Chapter 11 route.
Here is the way that the newspaper landscape could look in one year's time.
The west coast's largest cities could be newspaper less.
The Los Angeles Times' parent company, Tribune, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Because the Times was purchased by the Tribune company, it may end up being sold as part of the restructuring. Or, you guessed it. Closed.
The San Francisco Chronicle faces worse as there is no Chapter 11 in their future. Either stop the bleeding or be sold or closed.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is in the same boat as the Chronicle.
Again, to beat the dead horse, these newspapers have all capitulated as unbiased providers of news and information. They all have become lefty rags and many readers have left in droves.
The internet excuse is just that. An excuse.
People do like to actually read a newspaper. Sure, many young people do not, but they never have. Eventually, many people grew into reading newspapers. I am in the rare category of liking both the actual paper and the immediacy of the internet.
When newspapers lose credibility with many readers, they seek alternatives. And, many never go back.
It is not just in news and or editorial content.
It is the way many newspapers cover sports. Or the arts and entertainment. There in larger newspapers seems to be an agenda. Not information that one can use. An agenda.
And it appears that many, if not most, of these newspapers are simply going to go down in their lefty ship rather than change what they are doing and how it is losing readers and advertisers.
Yes indeed, happy days are here again!
I wonder if there will be a fire sale of all those Obama election extras when these newspapers do go under?!
4 comments:
I do share your view that the papers have been their own worst enemies mostly by alienating half of their potential customers.
However, I do not share your enthusiasm for the print media's demise as I have enjoyed reading newspapers for over 40 years. I enjoy reading newspapers for the same reason I enjoy reading books. The tactile experience just seems more satisfying.
As a businessman myself I cannot understand the arrogance of print management as it seems to have gone out of its way to stick their fingers in the collective eyes of moderates and conservatives to what appears to be their own destruction.
I canceled my subscription to the L. A. Times a few months ago, and although it is tempting to wallow in a little schadenfreude I will miss the print news. Reading online, although more timely, isn't quite as satisfying.
I predicted the demise of the newspapers back on November 27, 2007. The bias and Political Correctness has turned too many people away from the newspaper and toward the internet where at least they have a "choice" and can get some truth. It's really quite sad, but the owner's of the paper are to blame. If they actually allowed their journalists to report news rather than glorify the candidate they like, they wouldn't be in this predicament. The Amercan people are opening their eyes and are sick of the bias and PC crap that's printed in the papers.
Newspapers will believe any excuse for their failure OTHER than that they are overtly biased. They don't believe that, or they don't care, or they believe they're in the right for being so thus it plays no role in their downward spiral.
I subscribe to a local paper that tries to be unbiased. That's it, that's their reason for success, they make the effort. They're not 100% unbiased (a few employees from the bad ol' days are still on board, and the paper relies on AP/UPI, etc. too much), but they MAKE THE EFFORT.
I laugh when another paper tries to get my subscription dollars, it ain't gonna happen.
Remember some of the wackiest stories arising from Bush Derangement Syndrome? I think I'm getting Obama Derangement Syndrome as this thought occcurred to me:
The papers aren't going bankrupt, Obama's closing them down, one by one, in preparation for ...
Oh heck, I can't think of a juicy conspiracy theory. Guess I'm not quite as deranged as the opposition.
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