I hear you there, and at first I thought so too. But most of their money is made from advertising, and I would think that would be more of a trickle-down type of thing, and take longer for the Times to realize the loss. I can't vouch for CNN's numbers, or where they came up with them. Can't even say for sure it was CNN, as I heard it over a month ago. But of all the "big-3" (CNN, FOX, and MSNBC) my opinion is that CNN is a little more of a objective, reporting-type channel, with less editorializing, and I appreciate that. In short, people who are supposed to report the news, should do just that, and nothing more. All the big publications (and news channels for that matter) have their editorial sections, and that's where the opinion(s) and politicizing belongs. Just saying.
I don't think that anyone is surprised that the NYT is somewhat liberal. That's been their reputation for as long as I've been aware of it (I used to color on the NYT with my crayons when I was a kid). From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times Quantcast has some poorly presented site visitor data, but not 2 years worth: http://www.quantcast.com/nytimes.com#summary Here's an article discussing an increase in online readership at the NYT since they stopped charging for online access: N.Y. Times readership jumps 64% http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/12/ny-times-reader.html A NYT article about the drop in paid newspaper circulation in general: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/media/06adco.html Looks like the NYT lost 4.5% paid (paper) subscriber-ship between Sept 2006 and Sept 2007. Most of the articles I found were old, from 2007 or earlier. Here are two with good background info: NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/822775.html The Future Of The New York Times http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_03/b3916001_mz001.htm I don't see anything saying that the NYT has experienced a major drop in readership. They've certainly experienced a long gradual drop in paid paper subscribers, but so has nearly every other newspaper in the US. One of the articles above discusses their planning for the day they stop printing the paper at all.
Just came across this: AdWords Can’t Save Newspapers; Google Kills Print Ads http://mashable.com/2009/01/20/google-print-ads-discontinued Interesting how much interest the newspapers had in that program...they were looking for a savior...me thinks.
All of RG's diligent scholarship points back to my original question: Where was the 40% decline in readership originally stated? You see, the problem I have is people who make unsubstantiated, un-fact checked statements in public forums (fora?). There's a certain responsibility that comes with writing for public consumption. You should be free to express whatever opinions you may have, but your factoids need to be checked and accurized. I haven't appointed myself the thought and print policeman, but coming off an era of global miscaculations based on unsubstantiated allegations, I have become extremely allergic to the Big Lie, in which when something is repeated often enough and loud enough it becomes the truth. I think we can effectively conclude that the Times has not experienced a 40% decline in readership, pageviews or anything else, period.
Perhaps they were discussing these numbers regarding NYC circulation? Mind you these numbers are over a 14 year period, but they do represent a substantial decrease: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/03/accelerating-decline-of-new-york-times.html I also read another article with regards to the decrease in newspaper circulation throughout the country. It essentially hit the nail on the head by stating that people "want their news now and they want it either for cheap or they want it for free". Speaking personally, I think that the last newspapers that I bought for historic value was on September 12, 2001. I do purchase one from time to time, but not for any specific reason.
I agree, I get my news online, mostly from Twitter actually (I follow the NYT and a slew of other papers). I also subscribe to the RSS feeds of a bunch of papers. And if that's not enough news I go to Google News or just straight to the NYT site. Paying for a paper seems silly. I will buy a paper once in a while in order to have a hard copy of the classifieds (mostly because Novedades can't code their classifieds online to work in Firefox...). And we bought hard copies after Hurricane Wilma so we could have pix of all that destruction. I do like to look at a physical paper if I'm in a cafe without a computer, but that's rare... Paper is dead.
Thanks, Zibbyzap. Nevertheless, this is not the issue I brought up. You are correct about the 14 year timeline. I'm discussing the allegation of a 40% decline in readership in 24 months. So far it's not been proved.
That's a distinct possibility......and as an afterthought, maybe the reporter said "revenue" ..and not "readership." ....because that would also include any drop in advertising income, which I suspect brings in a lot more money than newspaper sales. I don't know, and really don't care. Mixz had a good point re the Big Lie. I remember the day when you could rely on what you read in a newspaper, or saw on TV news, or heard on the radio. But for some time now, one has to take it all with a grain of salt, and I'm not about to spend hours on the computer, verifying every little thing I hear or read.
This attitude is precisely why we can't believe what the media says anymore... The problem is if you can't verify that something is true then you really ought not be repeating it... Remember that 47.3% of statistics are made up on the spot! (I read that on the internet, so it must be true)...
