1974 circulation figures

All the more reason to make English our National Language.

 

I suspect you're being sarcastic. But one could make an argument we should write more about immigrant communities, in their language and "ours." That's where the population growth is in a lot of markets.
At the turn of the last century, many new Americans learned English by reading the paper. And if we give today's immigrants reason to read ours (i.e. we tell their stories, not just tales of white suburban affluence), we might just stem some of that circulation loss.

 

That may or may not be true. However, most advertisers don't seem to value that readership very highly.

 

That's a historically inaccurate statement. I've written this before and it's a common misconception.
I see it frequently used in the immigration argument.
"Immigrants 100 years ago learned the language, why can't they?"
It's simply a nonparallel.
The Italian immigrations, especially of the late 1880s and early 1900s, received severe anti-Catholic sentiments causing generations to become insulated and remain in Italian neighborhoods and speaking only Italian.
As for the rest of the immigrants -- especially and mostly Protestant -- they already spoke English. The English, the Irish and the Germans (many of whom spoke some English) are unfair to compare. Their rooted language allowed immediate assimilation, if wanted.
And, of course going back further, we'll ignore the forced assimilation of this country's African American and black populations.
So, newspapers really had nothing to do with teaching a generation the language. It's romantic. But untrue. Commerce and capitalism more likely the facilitator.
And, there is today's problem. Survival without mainstream language skills is attainable in many neighborhoods in this country. It's not a newspaper problem. It's a cultural issue. Both sides of the line.
It is difficult to make the leap of having an immigrant that doesn't read our paper -- or understand our paper -- to undertake our product that delivers our language at an advanced level (presumably 8th grade or higher). It's not those immigrants we need to attract. It's the second and third generation populations (me) that are making their way through the education system. Those are the new readers that we must grab. Those are the cultural stories we should be doing.
Not only sports, paperwide.

 

I stayed away from Pittsburgh because it's hard to get a breakdown on the Tribune-Review's Pittsburgh/regular edition circulation. In 1974:

Press: 292,288
P-G: 220,088

 

Detroit has also lost roughly half its 1974 population,. I'd wager the population of the urban center has dropped in most metro areas as well since people fled to the suburbs.
And in 1974, PM papers were still rocking.
Now they aren't.

 

Ad revenue and profit margins are a better indication of the industry's relative health than circulation is. I'm not saying the situation isn't grim. However, I don't think we can say that a newspaper that's lost half its circulation is half as profitable as it once was. Half as influential? Maybe, maybe not -- because then you have to coinsider what kind of readers is it losing.

 

The city has shrunk. But the metro area actually has grown, from 4.4 million to 5.4 million.

 

Neither here nor there, but my grandparents came over from Greece and they learned the language from reading the paper.
My dad used to tell stories about it, how he would get quizzed on what was in the paper. He read the paper(s) every day as well since the house bounced back and forth between Greek and English and when I was growing up we got the two dailies and dad, who was also a media whore, would bring the Trib home from work and I would sit and read it.

And I didn't know Detroit's metro population had grown like that, but still as people left for the suburbs, that didn't help the city paper.

 

It surprised me, too. I looked it up expecting population loss, but far less severe than the city's. But I don't follow the logic on how it hurts the paper. All metros depend a lot on suburban circulation.

 

There is our battle lost. If our papers are not in the homes, then the children do not grow up with it and learn its utilitarian uses. It doesn't become a tool for their lives. It doesn't become part of their education. Their needs satisfied elsewhere.

 

Frank, two years ago: Frank, now:
Half-full Half-empty