Let It Die?

xenon

The newspaper market was somewhere in the order of $60B in the 90's (Ad+circulation). It's hovering somewhere around $20B right now.

There's probably way more news outlets available. People probably spend much much less time with any single news source. (or news in general given the rise of other forms of distraction and entertainment)

From the article:

The Times used to boast that it had “All the news that’s fit to print.” Now its motto and operating procedure is “Anything that will attract eyeballs.”

Is that surprising to anyone? My concerns is that if this is happening to the Times - what's left?

xenon

Oh - and the social media news universe is terrifying.

I have zero exposure to it myself - but my mom asks me about obviously fake news topics every few days now.

I’ve tried to tell her many times that she should just treat everything she sees on Facebook as false.

jon-nyc

I agree it’s getting far more questionable with all the woke stuff and being too narrative driven. But it’s not dying.

Don’t know about revenues but total readership is much higher now than when it was just a printed paper.

The stock is even doing well. Not quite the highs of 20 years ago but recovering really well from a decade ago.

xenon

Yeah - it's steadily inching up. But way down from its heyday. Good biz mgmt on their part.

alt text

But just "delivering the facts" is more of a commodity now than it was in the past.

Aqua Letifer

Wonder what's in "other."

taiwan_girl

@Aqua-Letifer Do New York Times license anything? I know some newspapers sell old copies to people that may want to remember a special date in history for example.

Doctor Phibes

@Aqua-Letifer said in Let It Die?:

Wonder what's in "other."

George Soros.

Axtremus

@Aqua-Letifer said in Let It Die?:

Wonder what's in "other."

Online, they charge subscription to crossword puzzles and games separately. Maybe that's part of "other."

Jolly

Could the NYT draw as many eyeballs without the fluff?

Axtremus

@Jolly said in Let It Die?:

Could the NYT draw as many eyeballs without the fluff?

Can FoxNews draw as many eyeballs without the crazies?
Can the GOP win as many seats without gerrymandering?
Can Trump get as much attention without the stupid?
Mysteries!

Mik

There is still a lot to like in the NYT that you won't get in other papers. You just have to get past the front page.

Jolly

@Axtremus said in Let It Die?:

@Jolly said in Let It Die?:

Could the NYT draw as many eyeballs without the fluff?

Can FoxNews draw as many eyeballs without the crazies?
Can the GOP win as many seats without gerrymandering?
Can Trump get as much attention without the stupid?
Mysteries!

In other words, you don't have a clue.

Aqua Letifer

@Jolly said in Let It Die?:

Could the NYT draw as many eyeballs without the fluff?

No. The fluff brings in the money you need to do actual journalism, at a ratio of about 1:10: for every ten stories of crap, you can do something decent. A big problem is social media. Folks sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, and hell, even here, is a huge driving factor in the increase in subscriptions.

A very certain kind of story does well on social media. And it's not journalism.

The New Coffee Room

Let It Die?