One-Third of US Newspapers As of 2005 Will Be Gone By 2024

[DEAD7]

One-Third of US Newspapers As of 2005 Will Be Gone By 2024​

The decline of local newspapers accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had as of 2005 by the end of next year -- rather than in 2025, as originally predicted. There are roughly 6,000 newspapers left in America, down from 8,891 in 2005, according to a new report from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. "We're almost at a one-third loss now and we'll certainly hit that pace next year," said the report's co-authors -- Penelope Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Medill, and Sarah Stonbely, director of Medill's State of Local News Project. Of the papers that still survive, a majority (4,790) publish weekly, not daily.

Over the past two years, newspapers continued to vanish at an average rate of more than two per week, leaving 204 U.S. counties, or 6.4%, without any local news outlet. Roughly half of all U.S. counties (1,562) are now only served with one remaining local news source -- typically a weekly newspaper. Abernathy and Stonbely estimate that 228 of those 1,562 counties, or roughly 7% of all U.S. counties, are at high risk of losing their last remaining local news outlet.

There isn't enough investment in digital news replacements to stop the spread of news deserts in America. The footprint for alternative local news outlets is tiny and they are mostly clustered around metro areas that already have some local coverage. The report estimates that -- for outlets focused on state and local news -- there are roughly 550 digital-only news sites, 720 ethnic media organizations and 215 public broadcasting stations in America, compared to 6,000 newspapers.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Capitalism just doesn't work for news anymore. Social media, talk radio, and TV pundits are all able to steal anyone's journalism for free and then repeat it (with their own spin) for profit without doing 1/100th of the work to uncover the news.

It's obviously horribly damaging in the long run, because the social media, talk radio, and TV pundits don't even know how to do investigative journalism, so when they "win" these wars and newspapers disappear, no one does it. But capitalism doesn't care.

It's past time the federal government started some sort of UBI for local papers in every community above a certain size.

 

[The Bilingual Gringo]

The term “news desert” is scary.

 

[Won Won]

10 threads in 8 minutes?

 

[bnew]

Capitalism just doesn't work for news anymore. Social media, talk radio, and TV pundits are all able to steal anyone's journalism for free and then repeat it (with their own spin) for profit without doing 1/100th of the work to uncover the news.

It's obviously horribly damaging in the long run, because the social media, talk radio, and TV pundits don't even know how to do investigative journalism, so when they "win" these wars and newspapers disappear, no one does it. But capitalism doesn't care.

It's past time the federal government started some sort of UBI for local papers in every community above a certain size.

I think income inequality also accelerated the death of newspapers since people are less likely to have disposable income. there does need to be a new economic model for news similar to medium because people are now use to getting news from a dozen+ sources and it'd be great if those outlets and journalists could benefit from viewership via a collective fund maybe similar to how the TV cable model works too.

 

[Kooley_High]

Capitalism just doesn't work for news anymore. Social media, talk radio, and TV pundits are all able to steal anyone's journalism for free and then repeat it (with their own spin) for profit without doing 1/100th of the work to uncover the news.

It's obviously horribly damaging in the long run, because the social media, talk radio, and TV pundits don't even know how to do investigative journalism, so when they "win" these wars and newspapers disappear, no one does it. But capitalism doesn't care.

It's past time the federal government started some sort of UBI for local papers in every community above a certain size.

I’ve seen this so many times lately. People taking bits and pieces of legit articles and inserting their own opinion on it, then having it go viral. What makes it worse is somehow their audience still accuses legacy news sources as fake news but will gladly listen to talk radio/podcasts that use legacy news as their source.

Ive even seen some instances of an article being screenshotted and shared but cropped in a way to where you cant see the true source.

It so baffling. Its like the conspiracy of a psyop but instead of the government doing it, its completely voluntary by the public

 

[bnew]

I’ve seen this so many times lately. People taking bits and pieces of legit articles and inserting their own opinion on it, then having it go viral. What makes it worse is somehow their audience still accuses legacy news sources as fake news but will gladly listen to talk radio/podcasts that use legacy news as their source.

Ive even seen some instances of an article being screenshotted and shared but cropped in a way to where you cant see the true source.

It so baffling. Its like the conspiracy of a psyop but instead of the government doing it, its completely voluntary by the public

accounts on twitter and instagram are some of the worse offenders. people have gotten use to just commenting on headlines and not even reading articles if the poster even bothers to link to a source.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

It so baffling. Its like the conspiracy of a psyop but instead of the government doing it, its completely voluntary by the public

Social media is one of the worst things to have happened to human society. It incentivizes everyone to do the least work possible to seek the quickest gratification possible, using the most addictive social manipulation tools that have ever been devised.

 

[Kooley_High]

accounts on twitter and instagram are some of the worse offenders. people have gotten use to just commenting on headlines and not even reading articles if they're if the poster even bothers to link to a source.

Exactly. I totally understand why reading comprehension is such a valuable skill now. Sounds like a pretty basic conclusion I should've gotten from high school but seeing misinformation in this social media landscape definitely opened my eyes to its wider implications.

 

[Kooley_High]

Social media is one of the worst things to have happened to human society. It incentivizes everyone to do the least work possible to seek the quickest gratification possible, using the most addictive social manipulation tools that have ever been devised.

Its like a dopamine hit. And the worst part is if they get it wrong, theres no apology, re-edit, deletion or fix. They got your view and your money, thats all that matters. You start to see why theres a code of ethics, fact checking, writing standards etc in most organizations. Without it everything just reverts back to yellow journalism for monetary gain.

 

[The Bilingual Gringo]

Social media is one of the worst things to have happened to human society. It incentivizes everyone to do the least work possible to seek the quickest gratification possible, using the most addictive social manipulation tools that have ever been devised.

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