Jay Weber Show transcript 10-19-23 7:40am
This doesn’t surprise me at all-given how dramatically things have changed in how we ‘consume or find’ news...
But...none-the-less Bruce Murphy over at Urban Milwaukee has an interesting story about how the Milwaukee journal/sentinel has lost 83 percent of its Sunday circulation over the past 20 years.
Remember what an engrained-and frankly- wonderful- part of a Sunday was picking thru the paper?
Even the kids wanted to see the comics and the ads...
But-those days are gone in virtually every household around here, apparently.
Murphy reports:
In the good old days the newspaper regularly reported this. In 2003, the paper reported that its daily readership, which had been declining for some years, actually increased by 3% the prior year. As a result, the JS stood at a Sunday circulation of 434,668 and daily circulation of 257,599.
That was probably the last real increase the paper ever saw. As the growth of the internet undermined the newspaper industry, the JS saw its readership steadily decline. In 2005 it had 405,009 Sunday and 237,333 daily subscribers, in 2008 it reported 384,539 Sunday and 217,755 daily readers. By 2011 it had dropped to 326,262 Sunday and 188,819 daily readers.
So, let’s stop there and not get lost in the numbers. These aren’t the ‘highest’ circulation totals that the paper ever had- because Murphy’s tracking starts after the overall decline in circulation had already begun-
But over just 8 years- from 2003 to 2011-
In just 8 years- Sunday circulation fell by about 110-thousand subscribers- or by over one-quarter.
And daily circulation fell by about 70-thousand- again-by nearly one quarter.
Then-the paper stops reporting their circulation figures, according to Bruce Murphy-who used to be a J/S reporter and columnist and has been in the newspaper industry his entire adult life.
He knows the topic.
He continues:
Beginning in 2019, some far different, drastically lower numbers were reported in the newspaper’s “Annual Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation,” which are required by the United States Post Office and must be filed annually in October. They show that the Journal Sentinel had dropped to an average daily circulation of 92,847 in 2019, which included 7,762 “electronic” or digital copies. That represented a nearly 50% drop from the daily readership the paper claimed just eight years earlier, in 2011. Needless to say the newspaper didn’t report this. Each year those numbers have steadily dropped, to 79,372 average daily circulation in 2020, 68,892 in 2021, 58,798 in 2022 and 47,567 in 2023.
Wow.
Who would have thought that-in the entire southeastern Wisconsin area- fewer than 52-hundred people were reading the j/s online every day.
And I’ll emphasize that these are the people paying to see all the content. These are the subscribers. Other people might be going to the website just to skim the headlines or click on a free story or two-
But that’s pathetic. It suggests that there are very. Very. Few of us who read this paper, anymore.
And again-Murphy admits some confusion over the figures-and that the company won’t clarify them- probably because they are as embarrassing as they look-but he concludes:
But even using last January’s Gannett numbers, the JS has lost 83% of its Sunday circulation over the past two decades, dropping from 434,668 in 2003 to 75,061 in 2022. It has lost 81% of its daily readership dropping from 257,599 in 2003 to 48,158.
It-is-awful. But it’s not unexpected. And the terrible decline in a once-great paper has a lot to do with the change over to the internet.
At some point-even most of the horse-bridal makers had to stop production because everyone moved over to cars-
But you cannot talk about this precipitous decline without also talking about the dramatic change in quality and content that the j/s has undergone as the print journalism industry has shrunk and declined.
These newspapers used to have a legion of supporters-and the circulations and sales used to be able to support them. Pay their salaries, etc. And so-there used to be all sorts of content and specific and detailed coverage when it came to newspaper coverage.
It simply doesn’t exist anymore, in any daily newspaper. Most of them are running on a literal handful of reporters. How many Milwaukee-based reporters does the j/s even have, anymore?
Do we know? Covering daily news? It could be as few as...two or three? with interns and editors plugging some gaps?
I have no idea. I found a website of j/s employees that only included four-but two were ‘contributors’ only and the site didn’t name Molly Beck...
And so...how many reporters does this newspaper have? And how much of their daily content is from other Gannett papers scattered around the state with only a single reporter- or padded out with other USA Today stuff.
I check the j/s website every day- it’s harder and harder to find interesting content...
And I -have started to notice that- on the weekends? Their website never seems to change. It doesn’t matter of a war breaks out in Israel...or there’s a major factory fire- there’s a good chance you aren’t going to see anything about it on the j/s website.
And hey-this is all just the reality and the ‘economics of print journalism now- in 2023- but at least a part of the ‘lack of interest’ when it comes to the j/s is the fact that their coverage just kept getting more and more biased...as the downsizing continued, as well.
There’s a definite link there between the old days, when most readers thought they were getting the full facts of a story and could decide some things for themselves....and today’s product...in which you know the slant of the story from the lead line.
This isn’t old-school journalism anymore. It’s left-wing activism-and boy-did the j/s hit its stride in that regard under George Stanley.
He was the managing editor who decided that his paper wasn’t even going to -pretend-to be fair, anymore-
And he left a steaming pile for Greg Borowski, the current editor, who i always thought was a very good reporter.
But-Borowski-has-been handed a job that essentially amounts to ‘managing the decline of a dying medium’.
There was a point at which a manager and a small group of people were the only ones left at IBM typewriter factory somewhere.... just managing the place until the inevitable end came.
And that’s what Borowski has been handed, if you ask me: the tattered remnants of a once-great local newspaper, because the world has moved on. And his job-if he decides to do it- or until the place is shuttered- is to just...keep...managing the decline. Putting out...or posting....’a’ product.... until someone tells him he can stop.
Meanwhile-broadcast radio and tv endure. For now. We’ve endured a lot of changes and have evolved, too, and are even stronger in some ways-but- our earth shattering, game changing ‘internet’ sort of moment hasn’t materialized yet.
Some thought it was satellite radio.
Nope. That’s a craptacular waste-that comes with a monthly fee.
Some thought it was podcasts.
Nope. Not if you want new, fresh daily content. If you want to hear about the women of Juarez-in four installments-over and over again, knock yourself out.
The internet changed-everything-for the print medium. Magazines and newspapers still exist-but – so do horse bridles and typewriters. Technically. But only ‘kind of’.
story credit: Urban Milwaukee
photo credit: Getty Images