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Newspaper Death Watch
Founded March 5, 2007
Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism
Paywall-Free


 * R.I.P.
   
   North American metro dailies that have closed since this site was created in
   March, 2007
   
   Tucson Citizen
   
   Rocky Mountain News
   
   Baltimore Examiner
   
   Kentucky Post
   
   Cincinnati Post
   
   King County Journal
   
   Union City Register-Tribune
   
   Halifax Daily News
   
   Albuquerque Tribune
   
   South Idaho Press
   
   San Juan Star
   
   Honolulu Advertiser
   
   Tampa Tribune
   
   McKeesport Daily News
   
   Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
   
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
   Wikipedia list of defunct U.S. newspapers


 * W.I.P.
   
   Works In Progress: Major metro dailies that have cut frequency or adopted
   hybrid online/print or online-only models.
   
   Ann Arbor News
   
   Capital Times
   
   Catskill Daily Mail & Hudson Register-Star
   
   Christian Science Monitor
   
   Cleveland Plain Dealer
   
   Detroit News/Free Press
   
   East Valley Tribune
   
   Flint Journal; Bay City Times; Saginaw News
   
   Harrisburg Patriot-News, Syracuse Post-Standard
   
   New Orleans Times-Picayune; Birmingham News; Huntsville Times; Mobile
   Press-Register
   
   Portland Oregonian
   
   Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 * 


 * JOURNALISM SITES
   
   

Social Media’s Double Standard
By paulgillin | February 29, 2024 - 5:17 pm - Posted in Uncategorized

CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy has a searing send-up of the free pass
legislators and the reading public give to social media companies while holding
mainstream outlets to higher standards.

Noting the recent shutdown of The Messenger, layoffs at the already tottering
BuzzFeed and the gutting of one-time high-flyer Vice, Darcy contrasts the
principles these outlets are expected to uphold with the sewer that is big
social media.

Photo: Unsplash

“Time and time again, companies like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and
others have been caught allowing harmful content to exist on their platforms,”
he writes. “In many cases, such content has not only been permitted to exist but
turbocharged via powerful algorithms. Child exploitation? Check. Promoting
eating disorders? Check. Batshit crazy conspiracy theories that radicalize
audiences? Check.”

Yet when confronted about this bad behavior, executives at these firms feign
ignorance or hide behind the First Amendment. The New York Times would be
pilloried for promoting child exploitation, but the same stuff gets by on
Facebook and Instagram with a wink and a nod.

“News organizations, crucial to a functioning society, are being hollowed out if
not outright dying. Meanwhile, technology giants, which have allowed harmful
content to gain a foothold in the digital public square, are thriving,” Darcy
writes. Sadly, the consuming public sees nothing wrong with this double
standard.





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New York Newspapers Band Together to Advocate for Themselves
By paulgillin | February 26, 2024 - 6:42 pm - Posted in Uncategorized

A collective of local news entities encompassing over 100 newspapers across New
York, inaugurated the Empire State Local News Coalition last week, hoping to
propel a legislative agenda to secure the enduring viability of local news.

The move comes at a critical time since the U.S. has seen more than 3,000
newspapers close since 2005, leaving many communities devoid of a single new
platform. New York saw a 40% reduction in its newspaper population between 2004
to 2019, along with a halving of the journalistic workforce and a 60% decline in
circulation. Thirteen New York counties are now served by a single newspaper.

All this has come to a head during a consequential election year. Studies have
established a clear link between the scope of local media coverage and the
degree of civic participation, the group said.

Zachary Richner, a founding member of the coalition and director of Long
Island-based Richner Communications, said the coalition intends to advance a
bipartisan legislative package to provide a support mechanism for newspapers
statewide. He called upon governmental and community stakeholders to support the
endeavor.

Key initiatives include:

 * The Local Journalism Sustainability Act (S.625B/A2958C), introduced by New
   York State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, proposes tax credits for local news
   organizations employing journalists. It’s intended to expand employment
   opportunities in New York-based journalism community.
 * Unspecified incentives for small businesses to invest in local media
   advertising.

A 2022 study found that around 354 New York newsrooms, including 53 in New York
City and 21 catering to black, indigenous and people of color would benefit from
the proposed local journalism payroll tax credit.



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Billion-Dollar Bunglers
By paulgillin | February 8, 2024 - 7:04 pm - Posted in Uncategorized

The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling scalds newspaper owners for the
mass layoffs that are making 2024 look like “one of the worst years on record
for journalism.”

The body count of laid-off journalists for January alone totals 800 in a year
that will see one of the most important elections in generations. A particularly
galling action was the Washington Post’s decision last fall to ax 240 jobs – or
nearly 10% of its total headcount – through buyouts. When billionaire Jeff Bezos
bought the Post in 2013, he said he was doing so to preserve high-quality
journalism, but the paper’s declining fortunes – it reportedly was on track to
lose $100 million in 2023 – evidently prompted a change of attitude by the
famously patient executive.



While there’s no question that $100 million is a lot of money, it’s only .05% of
Bezos’ $192 billion net worth. Houghtaling sees the penny-pinching as typical of
the rash decisions billionaires and hedge funds have made in media investments.

She cites the example of Sports Illustrated, the venerable magazine that once
boasted more than 3 million subscribers, which was all but shut down in January.
Thanks to a series of transactions, the magazine had come to be owned by The
Arena Group, which is “primarily a licensing company that acquires the rights to
celebrity brands,” according to The New York Times.

Then there’s The Messenger, an online publication that promised to restore the
value of high-quality journalism when it launched last year. Owner Jimmy
Finkelstein abruptly shuttered the operation last month after reportedly burning
through $50 million, including spending $8 million on office and a $900,000
salary for its editor-in-chief.

Owner Jimmy Finkelstein cited “economic headwinds” as the reason for the
collapse, but critics have said its business model, which was heavy on
aggregation and set an unreasonable goal of 100 million unique monthly visitors,
never made sense. Defector’s Chris Thompson charged that the company dumped
about one-quarter of its startup capital on luxuries and spent lavishly on
office space in expensive locations like New York City and West Palm Beach. Upon
closing, it shut down its website, leaving roughly 300 journalists without clips
to show for their labor.

Houghtaling takes aim at other clueless billionaires, including Patrick
Soon-Shiong for his purchase of the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego
Union-Tribune without any apparent plan to reverse their declines. Soon-Shiong
later sold the Union-Tribune to hedge fund Alden Global Capital, “which so
ruthlessly squeezes local papers for every drop of cash that it has been
referred to as the ‘Grim Reaper.’”

She also rips right-wing media magnate David Smith, chairman of Sinclair
Broadcast Group, for purchasing The Baltimore Sun and then holding an insulting
two-hour meeting with the paper’s staff during which he spoke mainly about
profits and told journalists to “go make me some money.”

Writing on Press Watch, Dan Froomkin asks plainly, if less elegantly, “Why are
billionaire newspaper owners so damn cheap?” His argument amounts to wondering
why people with more money than they can ever spend become penurious when it
comes to the news business. He suggests that nonprofits and foundations would
make better owners and can easily afford to purchase even the largest newspapers
at their current tiny valuations.



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BuzzFeed cuts and runs on serious news
By paulgillin | March 23, 2022 - 5:25 pm - Posted in Uncategorized

We were excited when BuzzFeed announced a major commitment to investigative
journalism and hired old friend Craig Silverman as one of its top editors back
in 2015. We were even happier when BuzzFeed, which cut its teeth on riveting
stories like 15 Celebrities Who Waited Until They Were Married To Have Sex, won
a Pulitzer last year for its exposé on China’s detention of Muslims in its
Xinjiang region.

Photo: Wikipedia

So we were disappointed, though not altogether surprised, to read that many of
the top editors have abandoned ship in the wake of a $25 million loss from
operations in the most recent fiscal year, down from a $12 million profit the
year before. CNBC says some large shareholders ever urged CEO Jonah Peretti
(pictured) to shut down the company’s news organization entirely because it’s
losing $10 million a year.

“This morning we announced plans to accelerate profitability for BuzzFeed News,
including leadership changes, the addition of a dedicated business development
group, and a planned reduction in force,” Peretti said Tuesday, burying the
lead. “We will prioritize investments around coverage of the biggest news of the
day, culture and entertainment, celebrity, and life on the Internet.”

In other words, those Chinese Muslims can go pound sand.

To give Peretti his due, he was under pressure to do something as the stock has
fallen more than 50% over the last six months since its initial public offering
as a special-purpose acquisition company in December. The situation worsened
with a disastrous quarterly earnings report and projected revenue decline on
Tuesday.

Peretti has had success turning around HuffPost with a similar cutback strategy.
BuzzFeed isn’t giving up on news entirely, but it will clearly emphasize those
stories that generate clicks and eyeballs. It’s another indication that in an
environment of social media misinformation and 10-second attention spans, the
market for serious journalism continues to wither.



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Tronc Eviscerates New York Daily News With 50% Staff Cut
By paulgillin | July 24, 2018 - 7:54 pm - Posted in Hyper-local, Layoffs

The cure for the newspaper  industry’s ills was once thought to be a
“hyper-local” focus, but that’s not proving to be the salve for New York City,
which is suffering an unprecedented decline in local news coverage. The latest
casualty is the New York  Daily News, which on Monday said it would cut its
newsroom staff by half. The Washington Post points out that this means that a
paper that employed 400 journalists in 1988 will have a reportorial staff of
just 45 when the latest cuts new owner Tronc take effect.
U.S. newspaper employment has fallen by 55% since 2000, from 424,000 people to
183,300 in mid-2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ironically,
the cuts are hitting hardest in New York, which is one of the media capitals of
the world. Politico notes that The Wall Street Journal shut down its own
experiment in hyper-local journalism called “Greater New York” in 2016 while The
New York Times has cut back on metro coverage and the Village Voice shut down
its print edition last year. Newsday pulled out of Manhattan long ago and no one
knows about the condition of The New York Post, whose finances are closely held
secret of owner Rupert Murdoch.
BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, who is a veteran New York reporter, summed
it up best, telling the Post, “Politicians know nobody is watching in a state
where everything from economic development to the electoral system is plagued by
systematic corruption.” The Daily News has won 11 Pulitzer Prizes, including one
last year for its work with ProPublica on the abuse of eviction rules in New
York City.
Arthur Browne, who served as editor-in-chief of the Daily News last year, told
the Daily Beast last year that the borough of Queens, which has 2.3 million
residents, now has no full-time court reporter, despite the fact that it
experiences 35,000 major crimes a year and that the local courthouse hears
200,000 criminal cases annually.
Robert York, the Daily News‘s new EIC, asked the staff for 30 days to define a
new strategy, which was apparently not in place before the firings were
announced. York has a 20-year-plus journalism career, including some recent
successes with the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call, but his background has been
mostly limited to features and photography, and he has no experience in the
rough-and-tumble New York market.
Among the casualties was former Daily News EIC Jim Rich, who had reportedly
resisted demands for further staff cuts. Rich didn’t respond to media inquiries,
but issued this tweet, which sort of sums up the situation in NYC right now.



> If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and
> in the dark, then today is a good day for you.
> 
> — Jim Rich (@therealjimrich) July 23, 2018

Cuts are expected at other Tronc papers, which include The Baltimore Sun and The
Chicago Tribune, but Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn said they wouldn’t be as
draconian as they were at the Daily News. 

IMAGE: PIXABAY



716 Comments

Crowdsourcing History With Global Newspaper Archive Search
By paulgillin | May 24, 2018 - 10:20 am - Posted in Uncategorized

The United States Holocaust Museum is conducting an interesting exercise in
crowdsourced research using newspaper archives from the 1930s and 40s. Called
“History Unfolded,”, the project asks students, teachers and anyone else who’s
interested to look in local newspapers for accounts of 34 different
Holocaust-era events that took place in the U. S. and Europe, and to submit
those articles to the national database.
As of May 24, nearly 3,000 people had scanned and uploaded more than 17,600
articles. The contributions not only form an archive of the “first draft of
history,” but also deliver a historical snapshot of how the Nazi threat was
perceived in its earliest days. It’s fascinating reading and a treasure trove
for history buffs.




4 Comments

Google Pledges $300 Million to Support Quality Journalism
By paulgillin | March 21, 2018 - 1:29 pm - Posted in Fake News, Google, Paywalls

With the media world buzzing about the fake news engine that is Cambridge
Analytica, news about a new Google initiative to support quality journalism
might easily be overlooked. The multi-faceted investment covers everything from
website analytics tuned to the needs of publishers to machine learning tools
that identify potential subscribers.
Of particular note is Subscribe with Google, a service that enables readers to
easily subscribe to a news source using their Google accounts, with payments
handled automatically through Google’s established payment mechanisms. The
search giant handles all of the back-end accounting securely and lets publishers
handle all subscriptions in one place. The company is also applying machine
learning to identify revenue opportunities for publisher with its Insights
Engine Project, which delivers better ad targeting and peer comparisons for ad
performance.
A particular interesting new dimension of Insights Engine is a feature that
identifies readers who are likely to become subscribers and helps publishers to
optimize offers when they are most likely to pay. With big papers like The New
York Times and The Washington Post collectively boasting more than 4 million
paying subscribers, this is an opportunity for small publishers to cash in on
the paywall trend.
The problem Google hasn’t conquered yet is how to identify and elevate
trustworthy information ahead of fake news. If it can figure that out, it can
perform a much greater service than just identifying revenue opportunities for
publishers; it can restore civility to our national conversations.



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Why Facebook Was So Easily Gamed
By paulgillin | February 20, 2018 - 12:13 pm - Posted in Facebook

“Research has shown that the downside of powerful, centralized networks is their
susceptibility to being subverted and exploited,” writes The Wall Street
Journal’s Christopher Mims in a fascinating analysis of why social networks,
which were supposed to challenge hierarchy, have reinforced it instead.
Delving into network theory, Mims explains why networks that start out with
flat, distributed power structures ultimately, become vertical hierarchies. That
was true in the Bolshevik revolutions of 1917, when a circle of insiders around
Joseph Stalin created a hierarchy within the supposedly distributed network of
citizens who overthrew the Czar.
It is also true in the 16th century, when the printing press and Martin Luther’s
vernacular versions of the Bible, rather than democratizing access to
information, led to nearly 200 years of civil war. The impact of the internet
has often been compared to that of Gutenberg’s invention.
“Even when networks aren’t architected for this kind of control, they tend to
organize themselves in ways that lead to disproportionate influence by a handful
of their members,” Mims writes. “When any new person or entity joins a network,
it is likely to attach to the most visible hubs, making them even more
influential.”
Facebook magnified this effect by designing its algorithms to optimize for
engagement rather than for truth. Russia understood this, and brilliantly
exploited it to foster confusion and misinformation in the 2016 election.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pro Publica is using fire to fight fire. Co. Design reports on the work that a
team at the nonprofit news organization has been doing to employ the tools of
big data to see if companies like Amazon and Facebook are living up to their own
policies.
The team crowdsourced the process of identifying examples of people who felt
their free-speech rights had been violated by Facebook, or that they had been
denied information because of some arbitrary decision. Facebook publishes its
censorship rules, but verifying compliance is nearly impossible. That’s what the
big data team at Pro Publica figured out a way to do. It used a Facebook
Messenger survey to gather input from the crowd and then combed through the most
puzzling cases by hand. In the end, Facebook had to admit not following its own
policies in 22 examples brought forth by members.
The Pro Public team’s next step will be to investigate how political ads work by
using a browser plug-in that scrapes Facebook ads and analyzes them using
machine learning. The team has already published some of its initial findings,
including the fact that many political ads don’t carry the required disclaimers
or candidate endorsements.

IMAGE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS



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#FakeNews: Facebook Isn't a Media Company
By paulgillin | October 19, 2017 - 12:21 pm - Posted in Facebook, Fake News

Image credit: Wikipedia


Despite a Pew Research study‘s finding last year that two-thirds of Facebook
users rely on the site for news, the COO of the world’s largest social network
insists that Facebook isn’t a media company.
“At our heart we’re a tech company… we don’t hire journalists,” Sheryl Sandberg
told Axios. Although Sandberg admitted that her company made mistakes in
allowing Russian organizations to buy ads to try to influence the 2016 U.S.
election, her refusal to admit the much larger and more damaging role Facebook
played by enabling the dissemination of fake news displays the kind of arrogance
you only find in Silicon Valley. Since when does the people you hire define what
you are?
According to Wikipedia’s definition of media as “the collective communication
outlets or tools that are used to store and deliver information or data,”
Facebook is as much a media company as NBC or The New York Times. The key word
is “deliver.” Facebook is not only the world’s most powerful news delivery
medium, but its algorithms are fine-tuned to give its members the information
that interests them most. Isn’t that also what newspaper editors do?
Come to think of it, no. Newspaper editors attempt to present their readers with
the information they think those readers need to know, regardless of whether
they want to know it. Facebook feeds its members only stuff in which they’ve
demonstrated an interest. The more defined your place on the political spectrum,
the more Facebook will shovel material at you that conforms to your view of the
world. News organizations seek to create an educated populace. Facebook creates
echo chambers.
One solution might be to change those algorithms to give Facebook members a more
balanced view of the world. But that isn’t in Facebook’s best interests. As long
as it continues to deny its role in shaping public opinion, it can justify
changing nothing. Because, you know, it’s a tech company.
This isn’t about algorithms; it’s about common sense. The social network now
says it’s working on elegant technical solutions to flagging fake news, but a
simpler solution last year would have been a banner at the top of every page
saying, “Do not believe something just because you read it on Facebook.” Be
skeptical, check facts and don’t share lies. And if you do, there will be
consequences.
Curation existed long before the internet, but it was the Web that made it a
legitimate form of media. Is Drudge Report not media because it lacks original
content? The stories it chooses to curate, and the places it assigns them on the
page, are a form of editorial because they help shape public opinion. The fact
that Facebook uses code instead of human editors to make those decisions doesn’t
change the outcome.





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Bad News on the Doorstep
By paulgillin | November 3, 2016 - 8:21 pm - Posted in Fake News

After a spate of closures and layoffs in the latter part of the last decade, the
newspaper industry appeared to find its footing over the past few years. But now
that oasis of stability may be drying up.

Hard times are hitting some of the most resilient titles, and the trend
indicates that things are only get worse. The decline in print advertising
revenue at The New York Times has accelerated from 9 percent in the first
quarter of 2016 to nearly 19 percent in the most recent quarter, writes Mathew
Ingram in a Fortune story ominously headlined “The New York Times Scrambles to
Avoid Print Advertising Cliff.” In announcing its financial results, the paper
said it expects the falloff to continue “at a rate similar to that seen in the
third quarter,” or at least 19% per quarter.

The only good news in that statement is that sequential 20% declines take a
smaller total dollar bite out of revenues with each iteration because the base
number is smaller. But that’s the only good news. If the last three quarters are
any indication, the Times advertising business is in free-fall. The paper has
done a better job than anyone of growing its base of circulation revenue and
increasing its digital advertising business, but both pale in comparison to the
size – and profitability – of the print advertising business.

Almost in tandem with the Times’ disappointing financial results, The Wall
Street Journal announced that it will consolidate sections and lay off staff as
it seeks to stabilize its print business while it scrambles to grow its digital
operations. Last week, the Journal laid off the staff of its “Greater New York”
section and offered buyouts to 450 employees. Only 48 took the package,
indicating that things could get ugly soon.

A new “Business & Finance” section will combine the Journal’s current “Business
& Tech” and “Money & Investing” sections, Reuters reports. New York coverage
will be reduced and moved into the main section of the newspaper.

The Journal has proved more resilient to the downturn than most print newspapers
because of its pricey subscriptions and well-heeled readership. When the most
optimistic statement management can make is that the paper is seeking to create
a “print edition that can stand on a sound financial footing for the foreseeable
future,” that doesn’t sound good.

Speaking of Reuters, the company completed this week’s morbid hat trick by
announcing that it will lay off about 2,000 workers at a cost of $250 million as
part of a “transformation” of its business. The silver lining – journalistically
speaking – is that Reuters said none of the cuts will be in the newsroom.
Instead, they will be focused in financial and technology operations that
primarily serve financial services companies. Things have been tough in that
business amid low interest rates and pressure from new-economy competitors.
Reuters has the advantage of being a diversified company with a strong position
in financial markets, but revenues are flat and there’s no indication of where
additional business will come from.



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