A sobering update on the dying newspaper industry and the desperation among those newspaper giants that are losing their crowns, their kingdoms, their influence and their purpose reports that a media company just sold its Tampa newspaper outright for a 98% markdown. Why? The media company wants out of the newspaper business.
And it’s a growing concern nationwide. A 2010 Pew Research Center report said that only 23 percent of Americans polled had read a print newspaper the day before. Ten years before that, 41 percent reported reading a print newspaper the previous day, meaning that daily print newspapers have lost nearly half of their readers.
And Americans aren’t reading those newspapers online much, either. The same Pew study found that 38 percent – less than half of American public – said they regularly read a daily newspaper, in print or online. In 2004, 54 percent said they regularly read a daily newspaper. The report also said:
Roughly a third (34%) of the public said they went online for news yesterday – on par with radio, and slightly higher than daily newspapers. And when cell phones, email, social networks and podcasts are added in, 44% of Americans say they got news through one or more internet or mobile digital source yesterday.
Americans are looking for their information from resources they trust and reflect their worldviews.
