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Report lists newspapers as ‘dying industry’

Globe Gazette, owned by Lee Enterprises.  When will the doors close – permanently?

MASON CITY – A new report out this month lists newspapers as a dying industry in today’s economy.

In the tumultuous business world, times change, industries come and go – nothing lasts forever in a free market society. Observing those trends, 24/7 Wall Street this month listed America’s 25 Dying Industries. Videotape and disc rental, bookstores, recording studios, and libraries all are on the decline. Not surprisingly, newspapers were ranked 11th on this dubious list. Few industries have taken a bigger hit from the rise in digital media than print newspaper publishers, the article says.

“Once the preferred news medium, newspapers nationwide have been losing advertising and subscription revenue over the years as cable television and web-based news platforms have gained favor,” 24/7 reports. “As a result, dozens of publications across the United States have gone out of print or have dramatically reduced output over the past decade. The industry, which employed nearly 350,000 Americans as recently as 2007, now employs only about 177,000 people.”

In light of this revelation from 24/7, locally, some wonder how long the Globe Gazette and other nearby newspapers can hold on. It was announced last year, for example, that the Globe Gazette threw in the towel on Monday newspaper distribution.  Other questionable business decisions may hasten the inevitable.  Back in 2014, the Globe announced it had spent a whopping $2 million on a used printing press, apparently to fix up the blurry newspaper pages it was delivering.  Now, those newspapers are getting smaller and will be delivered much less often.  This month, the owner of the Globe, Lee Enterprises, revealed it was using lower basis newsprint (lighter paper) to deliver the news.  In response, NIT readers have listed numerous complaints about the delivery of their newspapers, with some saying they canceled their subscriptions altogether, with one person saying “Just cancelled my subscription today.”  Lee also has revealed it is cutting back on employees and cutting pay, just as the 24/7 report says is an industry trend.

One review on Glassdoor.com of working for Lee Enterprises says, “Negative environment due to several rounds of layoffs and ceasing to publish several of their smaller publications. The new idea to centralize different key departments company wide across the US to save on cost has caused a drop in the quality of the remaining publications and caused huge stress to the downsized workforce struggling to put out a semblance of the quality product they used to put out. The place has been gutted and has no culture left. Decisions are handed down from the corporate office in Iowa with no care for the consequences it causes to long-time, loyal employees.”

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