By Katie Wilson
FAIRMONT — Many people say the daily newspaper is going the way of the dodo. If it hadn’t been nailed to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It wouldn’t voom if you put 4 million volts through it.
Yes, there are problems and they are spread throughout the country. So far, at least 11 daily newspapers have ceased publication in the last year. One of them, the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colo., just published its last edition Friday. Many more newspapers are for sale, and some are even filing for bankruptcy. But the situation may not be as dire as the average Joe thinks it is.
Just do a simple Google search for “newspaper problems.” There are thousands of blog entries and other articles devoted to “the death of the newspaper.” Some even applaud the fact while others are bemoaning it. Many of them were written well before the current economic downturn began.
One group has formed to fight against the misconception that newspapers are a dying industry. The Newspaper Project was formed by Randy Siegel, president and publisher of Parade Publications; Donna Barrett, president and CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. and president of Southern Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA); Brian Tierney, CEO and publisher of Philadelphia Media Holdings; and Jay Smith, former president of Cox Newspapers and past chairman of the Newspaper Association of America. The Times West Virginian is owned by CNHI.
The group’s Web site, www.newspaperproject.org, acknowledges there are issues facing newspapers, but rejects the notion that newspapers and print journalism have no future. A number of the articles and editorials express caution about what will happen if newspapers disappear.
In an editorial Thursday, Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that without newspapers, “there will be fewer watchdogs to guard the store.” She discusses the huge amount of information available online and how not all of it is credible or even true. “Newspapers are the public's referees as to which information is credible. You can go online and read no end of fiction and smear about public figures. But when you read content in a newspaper, you consistently can rely on it.”
The battle cry of many of the editorials and articles on the site is local news that matters to local people.
Andy Kniceley, vice president of dailies for the West Virginia Press Association and publisher of the Times West Virginian, said local newspapers are ahead of the curve. With local content that matters to local people and local advertisers, community newspapers like the TWV are ahead of metropolitan papers that depend on wire news and chain store advertisers.
“In fact, 2008 was our third most profitable year ever, despite the national recession,” Kniceley said.
Another issue facing newspapers is how to incorporate the Internet. While some newspapers provide all their content on their Web sites for free, others charge a fee. The big news aggregate sites, like Yahoo! and Google News, take their articles from the Web sites of media organizations, many of them newspapers.
“Without the reporting and editing functions of newspapers, the Internet would lack a credible news source,” Kniceley said.
Here’s some facts about newspapers gathered by the Newspaper Association of America.
• 48 percent of adults read a newspaper on an average weekday.
• 54 percent of adults read a newspaper on an average Sunday.
• 67 percent of adults read a daily newspaper in the past five days.
• 69 percent of adults read a sunday newspaper in the past month.
E-mail Katie Wilson at kwilson@timeswv.com.
