Source: Lehmann Brothers via Wall St. Journal
We are all well aware that newspapers are no longer what they used to be in this country. It's a painful reality to come to terms with, but news organizations across the country are laying off people right and left.
In my newswriting classes I always start off the term asking how many students actually have a subscription to a daily newspaper. For the past few years, if a hand goes up, I get really excited.
What do you do with journalism students who don't have a feel for the traditional newspaper?
The watchdog of the future is looking more like a laptop dog.
Steven Rattner has a commentary in the WSJ about what going on in the industry. Rattner claims that "falling circulation, repeated rounds of layoffs, disappearing ads and a chain of bad earning reports" are doing newspapers in. But there's more. That might be part of the story, what is really killing newspapers is the culture of celebrity news and entertainment. The media is willing to pay photographers an outrageous fortune for picture of the couple or the latest Brangelina baby (that's the offspring of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to the uninitiated), but barely covers world news the way it really should.