Newspaper Executive Says Newspapers Are Finished

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As McClatchy Files for Bankruptcy, Charles Munger—a newspaper company executive & vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.—said, “Technological change is destroying daily newspapers in America. The revenue goes away and the expenses remain and they’re all dying.”

Berkshire, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett, announced last month that it would sell off its newspaper holdings. BH Media & the Buffalo News will be acquired by Lee Enterprises Inc. in a rare divestiture for Buffett after he spent years snapping up local newspapers. Buffett, a fan of newspapers since he was a boy, has lamented the decline of the industry as it suffered plummeting readership, ad competition from the web and newsroom cutbacks. He said last year that most newspapers are “toast.”

“They’re all going to die,” Munger said, “It’s a sad thing”. He named some exceptions, saying the New York Times & Wall Street Journal are likely to survive.
Newspapers Are Finished Says Executive, As McClatchy Files Bankruptcy
 
Well, the president of the US has been loudly informing us for the past few years that the mainstream news media is in the business of propagating fake news so their audience has moved on to more reliable news sources like Twitter and Reddit. Can anyone take seriously a newspaper that features full pages of comics, horoscopes, and financial guidance? And why would anyone trust the fake news reporters when they could be enlightened by hardcore freelance news reporters like NukeTheFluke, Wysew Serious, and StopBanningMe? And all delivered at no cost other than irrelevant pop up ads and videos that take forever to load while the site's backend tries to figure out where, and who you are? As far as ad dollars are concerned, websites are the only places in the US where the metric system is desired. Metrics, which my morning fish wrap - I mean - newspaper, can't deliver.

The newspaper industry has only itself to blame.
 
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It will be unfortunate for newspapers to go away. They offer something TV or other media doesn't, always. Newspapers go into more detail on stories; TV goes for sound bytes and (sometimes) misleading summaries of stories absent context. How a story is reported is as important as what is reported. Given social media and its flaws, we need, more than ever, objective, non-partisan sources. Newspapers aren't all that way either, but there's more room for arguments to be fleshed out so one has a better chance to evaluate and decide for themselves.
 
^^What he said^^
I had stopped home delivery of my local newspaper a few years ago. Recently they put out a series of articles on a plume of ground water contamination from manufacturing runoff that government and the manufacturer knew about for decades, could have mitigated the problem much easier years ago, and now it threatens the drinking water supply. Other articles exposed layers of government corruption. News reporting like this was why I restarted my subscription. I appreciate when important issues are brought to true light for all to see.
 
Did we opine in the same way the fall of the written encyclopedia back when that happened? Quality content can't save an outdated medium. If you're in the business of producing quality content or journalism, you need to adjust to the new mediums people use...which is what the big boys (NYT & Wash. post) have been doing.
 
OffsetStorefront said:
Did we opine in the same way the fall of the written encyclopedia back when that happened?
Click to expand...
Can't speak for "we", but I did not. I was probably too young to care. But to me there's a difference between a daily periodical and a reference book.
OffsetStorefront said:
Quality content can't save an outdated medium. If you're in the business of producing quality content or journalism, you need to adjust to the new mediums people use...which is what the big boys (NYT & Wash. post) have been doing.
Click to expand...
I'll agree, but while we're still offered the choice of content delivery method, is it wrong to go with the older medium? Printed vs. ebooks?
 
The local daily newspaper was the pulse of the community. So sad that it is gone. Today’s online news offerings are ridiculous.
 
Torstar Media has just been sold. It will be interesting to see what that evolves into. Torstar is a fairly major newspaper publisher.
 
Investigative reporting is dead, its all press releases these days, either on TV or in newspapers. If they want to survive they need to get back to investigative reporting but their is no money in that.
 
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