Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Are you blogging? Maybe you are helping to destroy the newspaper industry!

Yahoo! Finance has an gloomy article that Newspaper Stocks Are Value Traps:

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The resulting dynamic is a value-destroying feedback loop: Declining ad revenue and readership necessitates cost-cutting. Cost-cutting inevitably affects content. Diminished content, whether real or perceived, alienates readers, who become more likely to cancel their subscriptions and seek out alternative news sources. This accelerates the migration of readers to online sources and the decline in ad revenue, which will necessitate even more cost-cutting. We think the cycle will feed on itself.
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Blogs are not explicitly mentioned, but we are part of the "alternative news sources." I took a history of American business in college. It was amazing to whole industries come and go. I don't think newspapers will disappear, but I have noticed that our newspaper seems to get smaller each year.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)


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Technorati tags: newspaper

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It is hard to lie to people that have this much information at their fingertips. Our local San Diego paper is just about bias to the point of being a joke.

Crimson Wife said...

I've had subscriptions to a couple of different newspapers in the past (the Boston Globe and the S.F. Chronicle). I got very turned off by their biased writing- ultraliberal, anti-religion (particularly anti-Christian), and elitist. So I chose not to renew those subscriptions when they ran out & I don't miss them at all.

NerdMom said...

I can but hope that I am destroying the newspaper industry;). I feel the power!

Henry Cate said...

I think we are still at the beginning of some huge transformations in how people get the news.

The only reason I keep getting the paper is for the comics. I enjoy them. My daughters love to read them. I think half of their early reading experience is looking at the comics, and then slowly picking up more words.