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Eagle mirrors national decline of daily papers
07/15/06
Newspapering is in trouble. Once again, as it has for the past two decades, the Newspaper Association of America has had to announce that circulation of its nationwide member papers has continued its inexorable decline, this time down 2.6 percent in the recent reporting period that ended March 31. And profitability is down, too, leading to further reductions in newsroom staffs, since news gathering is labor intensive and is not a profit center — unless you’re a reporter, columnist or news organization on the take, not an implausible presumption given the state of what passes for journalism these days.
Alas, The Berkshire Eagle, along its affiliates, the Advocate and North Adams Transcript which comprise this region’s news and information monopoly, reflects these national trends. The group offers intriguing clues into why newspapers are on the skids.
The Eagle is owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group, a chain notorious for its loyalty to the bottomline, whatever it takes. Nearly $1 billion in debt, the privately-owned company recently agreed to borrow another billion to purchase four California papers. At the same time, MediaNews disclosed a loss of $3.6 million for the quarter, its worst performance.
Locally, this has meant a hiring freeze at the Berkshire Eagle, as each of the MediaNews properties squeezes more profits from their individual markets to pay for the parent company’s expanded debt load in a weak advertising climate.
As if financial scenario weren’t challenging enough, the latest available numbers, posted March 31 from Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), confirm a serious — some would say — disastrous decline in Eagle circulation.
Since March 2004, Eagle daily circulation has dropped by 4,438 to 26,714 (and that includes 1,035 used in schools — more on that later), a loss of 14 percent; Sunday, the downward trend went from 35,660 to 30,170 in the same period, a 15 percent drop.
The Eagle management’s response to this substantial erosion of readership appears to be counterintuitive. First, the paper increased its single copy prices 14 percent to 60 cents daily, $1.75 Sundays, but only for those copies sold at stores. In the Eagle streetside vendor boxes, it’s the same old 50 cents, $1.50. To retrofit them would require spending some money. The higher prices, though, are on the masthead. Get less for more. Go figure.
Second, they offered free advertising to contributors to the Newspaper in Education program, where copies are delivered to area schools, supposedly to be used in classrooms. In reality, bundles of papers are dropped off, whether the educational institution requests them or not. The Eagle claims it
distributes 6,000 copies per week to area classrooms, but it’s really just a device to jack up the circulation numbers (and thus maintain advertising rates). The practice has gotten some papers, like Newsday, into big trouble. And furthermore, it’s against ABC rules to trade advertising for circulation.
What this decline suggests is that The Eagle is losing touch with its readership — or perhaps it’s just that elephantine graphics ballyhooing inconsequential reportage pandering to a fictitious demographic has left most readers feeling that the paper is, in today’s world, irrelevant. Eagle management may not realize this, but potential newspaper readers, regardless of their age, yearn for a source of thoughtful insight and of perceptive reporting that provides information on what is really happening, why, and where it’s taking us. Readers also want a newspaper that regards its role as a serious guardian of the people’s interests rather than as merely an opportunity for commercial exploitation. And they don’t cotton to writing that insults their intelligence.
Frankly, the Berkshires deserve better, and so does the nation.
And consider these parallel developments:
On the national front, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to approve cross ownership of newspapers and TV stations, inviting even greater consolidation of news presentation in the hands of the fewer and fewer media giants. The FCC action would reject the principle that competition among news organizations leads to truthful reporting, diversity of opinion, and a fertile mix of ideas that are the cornerstones of an informed populace in a healthy democracy.
Congress is deliberating measures that would take away equal access for all to the Internet, termed “Net neutrality.” Big telecoms want to reserve the communications network, a vital communications pathway, for those who can pay the most.
Media Watch: News, views and previews - some subversive, some impudent - about local and national media developments and trends. As Thomas Jefferson noted, if the people have access to a free, uncensored, unfiltered, unencumbered flow of information, and if the people can read, all is safe. Send your comments, ideas, criticisms, queries to: davidscribner@scribbyworld.com .
7/16/2006
Good stuff. Keep it up!
7/17/2006
Why don't you write about the page one story you did for the Record on how great your darling Kyle Sawin was doing having "gone straight" after costing the county thousands of dollars in police and court time? Mention the smiling photo you took of him and the pathetic argument you made about how, if only that mean old DA hadn't enforced the law down there for you potheads same as he does in Pittsfield, then poor Kyle could go on being a model citizen. There are mostly good kids in Great Barrington but you insist on supporting the bad element. We know what your judgment and moral compass is.
7/17/2006
Just as Glenda advised Dorothy, Alan Chartock has always had the solution to the Barrington kid problem right there with him. No, Alan, doesn't have ruby slippers, but he does have a banjo. Kids HATE banjo. All he has to do is walk the streets of Barrington wearing purple tights, a colorful plumed hat, and play Foggy Mountain Breakdown over and over again. End of problem!
Ebben Flow
Middletown, Conn.
7/17/2006
Love to trash the beagle and the lapdog alan cartalk.... well done!
Beagle is sickening, and let us hope it just crashes, and then who knows something new can emerge.
AIL
Lenox, Mass.
