Posted on 05/08/2006 7:51:09 AM PDT by george76
Newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent in the six-month period ending in March, according to data released Monday, as the industry continued to struggle with competition from other media outlets and the Internet.
The decline in average paid weekday circulation was about the same as the previous time newspapers reported six-month circulation figures for the period ending last September, according to the Newspaper Association of America, a trade group.
The NAA reported that average paid circulation at Sunday newspapers fell 3.1 percent versus the same period a year ago, also a comparable decline with the last time circulation figures were reported.
Several top newspapers reported significant declines in the period, including Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, down 5.4 percent at 851,832; The Washington Post, down 3.7 percent at 724,242; the New York Daily News, also down 3.7 percent at 708,477. News Corp.'s New York Post slipped 0.7 percent to 673,379.
The largest slump at a major daily came at the San Francisco Chronicle, where average paid weekday circulation fell 15.6 percent to 398,246 as the newspaper continued to cut back on less desirable circulation such as copies paid for by advertisers and then distributed for free.
Patricia Hoyt, a spokeswoman for the Chronicle, said the cutbacks began at the beginning of last year and involved copies that "advertisers didn't value, were quite costly and essentially had no impact on our readership."
The Chronicle, which is owned by Hearst Corp., reported a similar decline in paid circulation for the previous six-month reporting period that ended last September.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
THAT'S BEAUTIFUL!!!
Definitely good news.
I fear that every medium starts out as a great liberation for free thought, and then soon becomes the very tool of establishment. Printing press, news casts, and - I fear - the internet. How long before web-based news is monopolized? Afterall - ANYONE could print their own newspaper to compete with the NYT. The problem was competing for advertizers. All of the factors that allowed them to dominate (quality presentation, mechanical layout, etc) could eventually translate into digital media... and then we are right back where we started.
The worst culprits that are looming as evidence for this (in my opinion): Google and Wiki. Google, simply because their founders are hardcore leftists, 100%, worse than any liberals at the Times. So far that doesn't affect their search engine, but for how long.... Wiki, I claim, because it is governed mainly by persistent "academics". It is a whole 'nother topic, but I have personally found entries to be consistently bias and outright lying in favor of leftist opinions.
These are two of the biggest "starting points" on the internet, currently. That is a very bad thing.
Glad to hear that the Boston Globe is ahead of the curve, losing 6% of their subscribers last year.
The Boston Globe, down 8.5 percent to 397,288, in six months.
Thus, annualized...even nicer.
BILL Clinton has made corporate reform one of his top causes since leaving the White House. He calls for more "socially responsible" investing, better protection of workers and greater diversity in corporate management.
At the same time, he condemns cronyism, excessive pay for top management and an alleged emphasis on short-term profits at the expense of workers.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee — has bashed corporations for their failure to live up to their pension obligations.
Yet, as the senior adviser to two investment funds managing public pension funds, Bill Clinton has himself promoted an investment fund that promises to put money into "lower-income urban and rural communities" — but instead devotes its cash to Al Gore's upstart cable channel and his wife's financial supporters.
AT first glance, it seemed the perfect fit: Bill Clinton, corporate reformer, signing on as a senior adviser (and "active adviser," according to a company press release) to the Yucaipa Corporate Initiatives Fund and the Yucaipa American Fund.
Both get all their cash from pension funds from public-school teachers and government workers in California and New York state.
"But a venture that was supposed to help minority businesses and secure the future of pensioners in two of America's biggest states seems to have done anything but."
Yucaipa told the San Francisco Weekly that Gore's enterprise "has a strong commitment to increase the representation of women and people of color."
But the upper management of the network is completely white.
The funds' real emphasis, in short, seems to be Democratic cronyism.
Another example: The Yucaipa Corporate Initiatives Fund recently backed up a bid by Diversified Investment Management Group to take over Piccadilly Restaurants.
DIMG is described by Fashion Week Daily "as a front for Ron Burkle," close friend and financial supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He's also the chairman of Yucaipa.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/61087.htm
Meanwhile, the workers whose pensions have been invested in Yucaipa are getting a terrible deal.
According to CALSTARS, California teachers have already committed $61.9 million of the $150 million that they promised Yucaipa. As of last March 31, three years after the venture started, they'd seen a grand total of $837 come back to them.
Overall, the rate of return since the funds launched have been a loss of 12.1 percent.
CALPERS has not done much better. After pouring more than $116 million into various Yucaipa ventures since 2002, it's seen a return of $55,963.
AT the same time, Yucaipa is also collecting hefty fees for managing the pension funds' investments — more than $3 million a year from CALPERS, and $3.5 million a year from the New York Common Retirement Fund.
How much of this ends up in Bill Clinton's pocket is anybody's guess. He's not disclosing his fees.
And why is Sen. Hillary Clinton, who appears to be so concerned about the state of our pension systems, silent about this?
"Meanwhile, the workers whose pensions have been invested in Yucaipa are getting a terrible deal.
According to CALSTARS, California teachers have already committed $61.9 million of the $150 million that they promised Yucaipa. As of last March 31, three years after the venture started, they'd seen a grand total of $837 come back to them.
Overall, the rate of return since the funds launched have been a loss of 12.1 percent.
CALPERS has not done much better. After pouring more than $116 million into various Yucaipa ventures since 2002, it's seen a return of $55,963.
AT the same time, Yucaipa is also collecting hefty fees for managing the pension funds' investments — more than $3 million a year from CALPERS, and $3.5 million a year from the New York Common Retirement Fund."
I love to send stuff like this to the retired teachers in California, I know and other state employees who are retired or about to retire.
Ask those retiring teachers and state workers...
Why is old media ignoring what Bill Clinton and Yucaipa are doing with hundreds of millions in pension money?
Their most common reply is, "I have not read anything about this nor seen it on tv?"
I laugh and tell them that they won't read about nor hear about it.
Fifteen years here also. At that time I was a witness to a self defense shooting in San Francisco, and read the account in the Chronicle.
It sure wasn't what I saw, and the Chronicle had no interest in publishing the truth in a correction. Epiphany time, haven't bought a paper since. I figured out one enemy Joe Average has.
"Fifteen years here also. At that time I was a witness to a self defense shooting in San Francisco, and read the account in the Chronicle."
Do did the lying/spinning Gay Rhonicle try to make the person who defended themselves the bad person?
"Bill Clinton, corporate reformer, signing on as a senior adviser "
He has a special rate for young female interns.
Short answer, Yes.
Both had guns, middle age guy, no record; younger minority guy, violence, drug record. Both fired weapons, young guy didn't hit any people but got shot up. Chronicle mentioned only one gun and shooter, made it appear young guy was unarmed in the original article. Never saw a correction.
Typical of the gun hating Gay Rhonicle. Thanks.
New information -
JOA FAS-FAX Of Life: The Big Partner Grows, While The Small Shrinks
By Mark Fitzgerald
Published: May 08, 2006 5:20 PM ET
CHICAGO The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1969 didn't do much of a job this preserving circulation in Seattle this Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reporting period. JOAs also continued their pattern of adding circulation to the market-leading paper while shrinking the smaller partner.
According to the ABC FAS-FAX for the six months ended March 30, which was released Monday, daily and Sunday circulation was down at the closely watched Seattle JOA, where the feuding partners encountered a recent legal roadblock in their attempt to settle their litigation with binding arbitration, the bigger Seattle Times slipped 0.6% in daily circulation to 352,503. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was down 0.9% to 131,769.
The jointly produced Sunday edition also declined, off 0.5% to 435,581.
In the first full reporting period since Gannett bought the Detroit Free Press from former JOA partner Knight Ridder and sold The Detroit News to William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group, circulation was also down daily and Sunday, though much more modestly.
Weekday circulation of the Freep was virtually flat, off just an average 69 copies from the year-ago period to 345,861. The Freep widened the gap between it and the News, which slipped 0.2% to 214,934.
The Sunday paper, which had been jointly produced for much of the reporting period, was down 0.1% to 669,315.
Denver's JOA continued to shed circulation gained during the long newspaper war--and the daily circ totals of the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post continued to mirror each other nearly exactly.
On an average weekday, the Post was bigger than the Rocky by just 25 copies, 255,452 to 255,427. Each paper declined a little more than 0.4%. The Sunday edition averaged 669,315, down 0.1% from last year.
Elsewhere, the bigger paper in a JOA generally increased modestly, while the smaller paper continued to shrink.
For instance, The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, which was included in Knight Ridder's sale to The McClatchy Co., slumped below 30,000, falling 1.2% to 29,089. In Arizona, the Tucson Citizen stayed below that circulation mark, declining 0.7% to 28,627.
The Cincinnati Post, which will likely close at the end of next year when the JOA is terminated, stayed above the 30,000 level despite a 1.3% drop to 30,951. The Cincinnati Enquirer added an average 0.3% to boost daily circulation to 201,979.
The Charleston (W.Va. ) Daily Mail slipped 0.1% to 24,306 while the Charleston Gazette was up 0.2% to 51,150.
In Pennsylvania, the York Dispatch fell 0.2% to 32,013 while the York Daily Record increased 0.1% to 47,583.
The Salt Lake City JOA was something of an exception to the rule: While the lagging Deseret News was down, it was only by an average 199 copies to 75,543. The Salt Lake City Tribune was also virtually unchanged, gaining less than a tenth of a percent to 131,711.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large
Interesting. My reason for shunning the newspaper is identical to yours--I witnessed an event first-hand, then watched the media (CNN in this case) spin it to something I didn't even recognize. Like you, it was an epiphany for me. I always figured that the news twisted the truth, but it was then that I found out that they outright lied about world events.
Yeah, me too. Bush 41 was POTUS at the time and I was used to Ronald Reagan, a brilliant speaker and one that the media had difficulty swamping with lies. Reagan would defend and get the truth out, the only time they were kept in place without the Internet. Bush 41 dropped the ball and my epiphany was about how effective the lies and lies of omission were without someone who could defend. I was asleep because an active conservative leader and thinker defended for me. No more sleepin' on the job.
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