Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle had a small story saying that at least 125 employees would be offered a buyout before the end of the year, and that if the reduction goal is not met, layoffs would be likely. The publisher was quoted as saying the Chronicle was "not the first newspaper to be affected by the downturn in advertising."
This morning's Chronicle had 24 advertising pamphlets or booklets--I don't know what to call them--in addition to advertising within the thin sections of news, some of it full-page. The Bay Area section of the paper, for instance, had six pages, three and a half of which were devoted to paid obituaries.
Founded in 1865, the Chronicle is northern California's largest newspaper, the only daily broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco. In 2005, the Chronicle experienced a 17 per cent drop in circulation, down to 400,000. In 2006, circulation again fell, to 363,805, and a fourth of the newsroom employees were laid off.
The population of the eight counties of the Bay Area is about seven million. Are they all getting their news from television and the Internet, have they lost the ability to read, or is it that they just don't much care what's going on in the world? Is it possible that readership could be related to content, and that the very lopsided relationship between editorial content and advertising could be affecting the declining numbers of people reading newspapers?
(The photo is a copy of Rembrandt's version of the Writing on the Wall from the National Gallery in London. The image is in the public domain.)
2 comments:
It is a vicious circle.
But don't you wish it could be otherwise?
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