Free Republic

A few months ago, needing to cut my monthly budget way down, I examined every place where I could cut. One of the things I noticed was how much money I was spending on a liberal newspaper that was continuing to jack its price while constantly shrinking in size and increasing in content from other news agencies (i.e., less NJ news, which is the reason I bought it in the first place). So I quit the Star-Ledger cold turkey. Other than the comics and the weekly food sections, I discovered that I don't miss it. On Sundays, an acquaintance is...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Daily circulation figures for US newspapers released on Monday provided more bad news for the embattled industry. Average daily circulation fell more than 10 percent in the April-September period compared with the same period last year, accelerating a slide that has led to bankruptcies, closures and cutbacks in newsrooms across the country. Average circulation for 562 Sunday newspapers was down 7.49 percent. The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures also confirmed a claim made earlier this month by The Wall Street Journal that it had become the largest US newspaper by weekday circulation, leapfrogging USA Today. Of...

"NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The plunge in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, according to the latest figures released on Monday, as more people cancel their subscriptions and publishers cut distribution and sales of discounted copies."

NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling daily newspaper in the United States. The Audit Bureau of Circulations won't be releasing its latest figures until Oct. 26, but the Journal said Wednesday that it gained about 12,000 subscribers in the April-September period, compared with a year earlier. That puts its average Monday-Friday circulation at 2.02 million. The Journal claimed the top spot last week after USA Today released its circulation figures early, but had not given out specifics until Wednesday. USA Today, which has long been No. 1, said last week that it...

After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe, the newspaper it threatened last spring to close because of mounting losses. The Globe did not draw high bids, and the company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said last month that the paper’s finances had improved enough that the company no longer believed it had to sell if the offers were not attractive enough. Executives said this year that the paper was on track to lose $85 million in 2009, before making painful cost cuts that...

John Temple, the former editor, president and publisher of the now shuttered Rocky Mountain News, has been running a great blog about issues from the newspaper industry over the past few months. He consistently has been saying stuff that made me wonder why the Rocky Mountain News didn't seem to do the sorts of things he seemed to constantly talk about... and now he's explained why. He recently gave a talk at Google about lessons from the collapse of the Rocky Mountain News in both text and video form. It's long, but well worth watching/reading:

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

A new study by the National Newspaper Association has found that subscriber cancellations have dropped from previous levels. From FishbowlNY In an effort to survive their recent economic struggles, newspapers across the country have increased home delivery and single copy prices

It’s not just conservatives who accuse the media of showing a liberal bias. A new survey from the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute shows that 89.3 percent of Americans believe the national media played a sizable role in helping to elect President Obama. And 69.9 percent of respondents view the national news media as intent on promoting the Obama presidency, while 26.5 percent disagreed, and 3.6 percent were unsure. More than half of those surveyed, 56.4 percent, said the news media are promoting Obama’s healthcare reform without objective criticism. Another 39.3 percent disagreed, and 4.3 percent were unsure. A majority,...

Independent News & Media is likely to close its flagship London title The Independent by Christmas, the publishing group's second biggest shareholder Denis O'Brien said on Friday. "There's no point in us as a company subsidising a newspaper that really nobody wants to read in the United Kingdom," O'Brien told Bloomberg TV in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Irish Economic Forum. "It's not a relevant newspaper anymore and this newspaper's going to be closed by Christmas,"said O'Brien, who has been at odds with the company's board over plans to refinance a 200-million-euro debt issue that was meant...

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last...

More than $10bn in advertising disappeared from US media markets in the first six months of this year, according to new data that show intense pressure on media owners and ad agencies as they search for other business models. Preliminary figures from Nielsen show a 15.4 per cent year-on-year decline in US advertising revenues, the largest drop for any period in the decade since the marketing and media measurement group began compiling such reports. The study showed sharp differences in the behaviour of different media and product categories, with cable television the only medium on which ad spend increased, up...

The following is a memo from ABC News president David Westin to ABC News staff today: Today, Charlie Gibson announced to his colleagues at World News that he has decided to step down as anchor effective at the end of this year. I attach below Charlie's full email. I have asked Diane Sawyer to serve as the next anchor of World News, and she will assume that position in January. -snip-

....Platinum has replaced or laid off six of the Union-Tribune’s top eight managers since taking over, and it cut 18 percent, or 192 people, of the staff three days after the deal was completed. It has also hired consultants to monitor the productivity of reporters and editors and is looking to rent out the top two floors of the newspaper’s headquarters.

...Some of the problems that have beset music magazines are familiar from discussions about the publishing industry's woes in general: Readership's down, advertising's down, the old guard has been slow in adapting to the Internet. But like newspapers and shelter titles, music magazines have proven especially vulnerable. ...leave aside the question of whether Blender and Vibe somehow deserved their undoing... and whether Rolling Stone and Spin deserve their present difficulties.... 1. There are fewer superstars, and the same musicians show up on every magazine cover. Say Beyoncé—or Kanye, or Kelly Clarkson, or any of the few musical acts that still...

July 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Famed CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite has been lauded in the media since his death on Friday, at the age of 92, with tributes paid not only from secular media, but even Vatican Radio and other Christian news sources.  But while remembered by many as "the most trusted man in America," many of Cronkite's more radical, but lesser known views, would be considered repugnant even to many of his greatest fans.For instance, up until his death Cronkite served as honorary chair of the Interfaith Alliance, an organization dedicated to countering the influence of conservative Christianity on...

The network news divisions are enjoying the unprecedented coverage they’re providing President Obama, not just because they support him, but because White House specials are cheap and do well in the ratings. “Obama should change his middle name from Hussein to Nielsen,” quipped longtime TV reporter Gail Shister in a story by David Bauder of the Associated Press. It seems like a never-ending spin cycle: laudatory coverage leads to popularity, which leads to higher TV ratings, which leads to more laudatory coverage. But it’s not working anymore. Behind the glittery curtains, Obama’s polls are falling. Worse, some ink-stained wretches are...

Thousands of people have come out to show their support of the new government in Honduras. But the media is reluctant to cover or report accurately what has happened, and what is happening in Honduras. But these Honduran bloggers are determined to get the word out and set the record straight in light of media bias, and the irresponsible support Obama and other world leaders are giving to this would-be usuper. More-

The country’s third-largest newspaper chain looks perilously close to bankruptcy. An agreement between McClatchy Co. and its banks puts the country’s third-largest newspaper chain at risk of defaulting on its debt by the end of the year, according to credit analysts. If that happens, Bank of America and other creditors could either show leniency and rework the terms of their agreement or push the publisher of 30 daily newspapers, including the Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee, into bankruptcy. In the current environment, banks are less likely to sustain companies on life support, said Shelly Lombard, an analyst at Gimme Credit....

Thirty years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini used audio cassettes and videotapes to spread his message of dissent and Islamic revolution across Iran. The old theocrat and his followers knew how to exploit the audio-visual media available to them to stoke rebellion. A generation later, young Iranians have again taken to the streets, this time to protest the "landslide" re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a vote that his reformist opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, insists was rigged. But this is a very different media environment. The Iranian government can ban and restrict the professional journalists who are trying to cover the demonstrations....