Posted on 02/14/2020 6:52:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
n another sign of the growing financial crisis in print journalism, McClatchy (MNI), the owner or 30 US newspapers, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
The company, whose newspapers include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, says it plans to stay in business and emerge from bankruptcy in the next few months.
McClatchy is the nation's second largest publisher of local newspapers behind only Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and hundreds of local newspapers. Gannett has had its own problems and was recently acquired by New Media Investment Group.
McClatchy and some of the newspaper companies it has acquired over the years, including Knight-Ridder, have a long had a higher reputation than Gannett for quality news reporting. It recently won two Pulitzer Prizes and many other awards, most recently for the Miami Herald's coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Despite that reputation for quality, it has been cutting staff in response to falling revenue and mounting losses. Company filings show McClatchy had 3,500 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2018, the most recent figure available. Five years earlier it reported just over twice as many employees. The company's press release said it has reduced its operating expenses by $186.9 million, or 23.3%, in the last three years alone, but it wasn't enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The company reported a net loss of $364 million in the first nine months of 2019, up from a loss of $52 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue in the first three quarters of 2019 fell by 11%, or nearly $68 million, with a decline in revenue from both advertisers and readers.
Much of the larger loss was due to a write-down in the assets of the company, as well as restructuring expenses and severance charges. But even without those charges and other special items, the company would have reported a net loss of $34.2 million in the first nine months of the year.
Where’s the aww factor number? I give it an AF-4 out of a possible 5.
Wait. My grocery doesn't even have a periodical section!
It must be hard for hard copy news outlets to survive these days.
Don’t get too excited.
The uber left wing Philadelphia Inquirer has gone bankrupt twice now.
It still prints and spews its socialist garage every day.
I’ve thought newspapers have been subsidized somehow for some time. They are just propaganda organs for the Left.
The journalism schools should be close behind.
#learntocode
Devin Nunes has a valid slander claim that will be discharged. Damnit
We need thousands of law suits against the media
Best way to hold them accountable for viscious lies
Nick Sandman had a huge wad of CNNs cash in his checking account now. Hes adding defendants
We need MORE
Shareholders should file a class-action suit against management and the board of directors. Although a public company, it’s clear their primary motivation was to push a liberal agenda, rather than ensure corporate profits. Their “news” is thinly veiled leftist-opinion, and their “opinion” is as far, or further to the left.
But, rather than present balanced views - and thereby appeal to a larger market - they stuck to their failed model, and bankruptcy is the result.
You have to wonder if something like that might have pushed the company into bankruptcy. Without a doubt, management would rather file chapter 11 than admit its policies were the reason for the failure.
With that in mind, so should many of the nation’s colleges.
Good. DEFUND propagandists...the organs of the CRIMINAL state.
DEPOPULATE criminals from the body politic.
The lie is their asymmetric weapon of choice.
Maybe a conservative will purchase the business and it will succeed with a right message.
1. accurate reporting of the news
2. conservative opinion makers
a winning combination
A conservative would not purchase an unviable business model.
Dinosaur Media DeathWatch!!!!
(Pass the popcorn!)
They’re just cutting back on costs and bills to go further into the net.
But they have opened another problem up that may be a major headache with their other bills to people they are laying off in the print shop.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article240296681.html
rwood
a viable business model would include an obituary page with a readable font, and prominent listings of senior functions. (I am a late octogenarian)
A viable business model would include a source if revenue which pays for everything. Craigslist, Facebook market, and dozens of small forums took the classified income, and all of those offer the ability to post lots of pictures and edit your offer in realtime.
Online add agencies and modern electronic billboards offer more targeted adds for funiture stores and things like that.
Coupons? There are coupon mailers even in my little Texas prairie town that don’t have the expense of running a full paper attatched.
So how are you going to make it on obituaries alone?
Oh My God! Now what am I going to do to line my bird cage?
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