fears for their future

usa washington post newsweek lowest print runs

With runs low, sinking advertising revenue and Internet presence in the U.S. sector is in crisis.










By Chris Lefkow



With runs low, sinking advertising revenue and readers increasingly monopolized by internet, the American press is in crisis and major titles in the history of journalism is in danger.

"The economic model for newspapers no longer works," says the president of the Washington Post Company, Donald Graham, echoing statements that are increasingly observers of American media landscape.

"The Washington Post and Newsweek lost money in 2008," Graham said last week at a conference in New York about two flagship titles. "It will be a challenge for us to show some progress in a very difficult climate for advertising in 2009," he said.

The Tribune newspaper group, owner of the prestigious daily Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, announced last week, which was placed under the protection of the bankruptcy law (Chapter 11).

The U.S. press has dismissed or asked to withdraw some 15,400 people this year, estimated Erica Smith, a journalist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that posted job losses in the sector.

Not a day goes by without his entourage of bad news, the economic slowdown accelerates the decline in advertising revenues and prompting many advertisers to turn to free Internet sites.

According to the Bureau of diffusion of the press, the circulation of daily U.S. 507 fell 4.6% in six months with 38 million copies sold on average from March to September, instead of the 40 million sold a year ago.

Only USA Today, Gannett group, and Wall Street Journal, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, reach to resist, earning modest gains of 0.01% of its readers.

The newspaper's advertising revenue has fallen 18.1% in the last quarter, the sixth consecutive quarter of decline, according the National Association of American newspapers (NAA, for its acronym in English).

During that time, online advertising increased, although not progress more than 8.9% in 2009, according to eMarketer. And the income from the Internet does not exceed 15% of the total of any major newspaper in the country.

Even the New York Times, the most prestigious title in the U.S., announced last week that it will take $ 225 million by mortgaging its new headquarters in Manhattan to offset a liquidity crisis caused by the restriction of the credit market and low its benefits.

"I think we will see entire regions without a local daily in the near future," warned Roy Peter Clark, vice president of the Poynter Institute, an organization that studies the media sector.

Speaking at a meeting in Naples, Florida (Southeast), on "the future of journalism," Clark felt that there is no "magic bullet" to ensure the survival of the sector.

The American Press Institute invited last month to 50 media owners to a meeting entitled "Summit of owners to save an industry in crisis."
Two experts warned media owners that are facing a classic scenario of "evolve or bust" and must act quickly.

In late October, the daily Christian Science Monitor, is not widely used but highly respected by his peers, announced it would abandon its print edition to go to spread the internet in April.








AFP












Source:

http://www.observa.com.uy/vida/nota.aspx?id=453