Newspapers’ Nosedive | WBUR and NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook

TODAY IS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2008

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 11:00 AM EST

Newspapers’ Nosedive

By host Tom Ashbrook:

The bloodletting in the American newspaper industry just gets deeper. On your doorstep, if you still get one, you may have noticed your newspaper getting skinny, as ads and readers fly to the web. But newsroom staffs around the country are getting skinny too. So are circulation numbers, and revenues.

Some days the future itself seems to be vanishing for newspapers. And quickly. Layoffs. Less news. Classified ads gone to the Internet. Readership plummeting. Old publishing companies bailing out. Great names in news unloaded at fire sale prices.

Newspaper defenders say Wall Street is killing the business. Newspaper readers wonder who will gather the news.

This hour On Point: newspapers in big trouble, and the future of the news.

Guests:

Sarah Ellison, media reporter for The Wall Street Journal

Bill Kovach, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and co-author of “The Elements of Journalism

Ellen Soeteber, former editor, Saint Louis Post Dispatch

John Harris, editor-in-chief of The Politico

Zachary Karabell, chief economist for Fred Alger Management, a New York-based investment firm

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