Demise of the Daily Newspaper
By Dr Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and the principal author of the declaration of independence, is reported to have once remarked, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter”. But that was before he became the president of the republic and himself a target of much press criticism.
Some two centuries after Jefferson’s pronouncement, newspapers in America, one of the world’s most vibrant democracies, are finding themselves in deep trouble. Their difficulties stem not from any restrictions imposed by the government; they are victims of the modern information age, the advent of the Internet, and the disinclination of younger Americans to subscribe to printed editions of newspapers.
Shrunken in size and volume, they are experiencing sharply declining circulation, and most significantly a reduction in their income from advertisements. The circulation of the daily newspapers has declined by nearly 3 percent during the past six months alone. Some of the well-recognized newspapers in this country, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Boston Globe, among others, have suffered a loss of 30 to 40 percent of their readership during recent years.
The Newspapers Association of America (NAA) recently estimated that in 2007, concordant with the general decrease in the readership, the revenue from advertisements was reduced by more than 9 percent, one of the sharpest losses recorded in half a century. It is well known that only a small part of the cost of newspapers is covered by subscriptions. Over 80 percent of it is borne by the advertisers which constitute the main source of income of newspapers. A significant number of businesses are now promoting their products, automobiles, appliances and real estate, on the Internet. Both the loss of readership and the progressive decline in income from advertisements have been exacerbated by the ongoing economic slump in America. The NAA predicts that the newspaper industry will likely suffer a loss of 11.5 percent in their advertisement income during the year 2008, which would translate into a loss of more than 40 billion dollars.
In an attempt to override some of their difficulties, the newspapers have adopted a variety of measures. Many have reduced their staff and closed down foreign news bureaus. The San Francisco Chronicle has reduced its staff significantly, while the publishing giant, The New York Times, also plans staff reductions although not on the same scale as The Chronicle. Most startling has been the announcement by the Christian Science Monitor, a highly respected newspaper that has just celebrated its one hundred years in print, that in 2009 it will cease to be a daily newspaper and will only be published as a web-based edition, the first major American newspaper to do so. Started in 1908 by Mrs. Mary Eddy to promote the ideals of the Church of Christ, Scientist, over time it evolved into a much venerated publication that analyzed in depth contemporary, major issues of national and international importance.
To save money and attract greater number of readers, some newspapers have turned parochial, highlighting local news, often related to crime and scandal, and deemphasizing international and even national stories. Some of the actions seem counterintuitive. In January 2009, Washington will witness the installation of a new president and his cabinet, and throngs of enthusiastic people are expected to descend on the city to be part of the historic event. Normally, it would be a major story for newspaper to cover and, indeed, many international newspapers will be sending a large contingent of reporters to the capital city. Paradoxically, a number of American newspapers, in order to cut costs, are either closing down their bureaus here or drastically reducing their size. Resultantly, some of the most experienced and respected journalists will become unemployed, while their papers will draw upon the dispatches sent by news agencies.
The print journalism has by no means become irrelevant. The 19th century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle used the term fourth estate to describe the power of the press, the first three being the crown and the two houses of parliament. Since the publication in 1704 of the first newspaper, the Boston News-Letter, American newspapers have enjoyed great influence and prestige across the nation, sometime provoking wars and in one case forcing the resignations of a president. In 1898, two powerful newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, propelled American into a war with Spain by putting out sensational and largely unfounded stories about Spanish atrocities in Cuba, which was a Spanish colony at the time and where a popular uprising was in progress. These stories helped whip up war hysteria. In the ensuing war, Spain ceded control of Guam, Puerto Rico and Philippines to America.
More recently, the power of the press has been exercised to support more honorable causes. In 1973, two young correspondents of The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, through a series of brilliant articles helped expose a criminal conspiracy to cover up a crime that culminated in the initiation of impeachment proceedings and subsequent resignation of President Nixon in 1974. Even today, newspaper editors and correspondents continue to have great power on public opinion, which serves to hold the government accountable for its policies and actions. Many critics, however, believe that the news media failed in its duty by not aggressively questioning the Bush administration about their bogus rationale for leading the country into the disastrous Iraqi war.
If the predictions come true and the print editions of newspapers become extinct in the coming decades, it is hard to imagine what the world will be like without them. Those of us so addicted to the pleasure of reading the printed word at the breakfast tables may never feel at ease with the disembodied Internet version, however convenient and inexpensive it might be.
