Newspaper Survivors

Amidst the doom and gloom discussions about where the presses will stop next, I am curious to see which newspapers people think will survive.

In this case, survival can be defined as staying in business (print and online) and preserving some semblance of a newsroom.

 

New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

Smaller-market papers with sound management, and family-owned and privately-owned papers not in hock up to their eyeballs, are in far better shape than most metros.

 

Agreed. Small community papers I expect to be fine as well. The Podunk Daily News that we all scoffed at before may be a choice of destination in the near future.

 

Couldn't agree more. That's the route I am trying to take now . . . getting into a good job at a smaller paper. Really, the only place you can get local news done well. You can get the national stuff anywhere and most of the bigtime national columnists people seek out will be moving on to the websites soon enough.

 

Funny (not funny ha-ha) how drastically things have changed in just five years or so. A few years ago, it was still (almost) every newspaper person's dream to get to the big metro. Now you would be crazy to want that job even if it still existed.

 

I'm curious about what will happen to the profitable newspapers who have the misfortune to be owned by the overleveraged and bankrupt chains.

My paper made a $53 million profit last year --- down from a $173 million profit only two years ago, but hey, a $53 million profit during one of the worst economic years in generations? Not too shabby.

Yet we are cutting and slashing to the bone same as every other paper in our chain.

 

They can't turn the lights out on the metros yet, can they? ??? I still have have a couple of weddings to pay for.

 

Yup. My dream was once to cover the local NBA team as its beat writer for my hometown metro. Now I wouldn't even dream of going there if they offered that position. I'm perfectly fine covering minor league baseball and preps for a local daily paper.

 

I've been at a 35K-circulation, privately owned shop for a while and can't see any reason why I'd try to go to a bigger paper. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I feel like I've got great job security and don't plan on going anywhere. I hate to see the metros suffering, but it does seem smaller is better.

 

From one of those who fit into the (almost) category ... sometimes bigger ain't better.

 

I love community journalism and have done it most of my life, but the problem with the smaller papers will be the lack of pay-scale advancement ... I'd be fine staying here in NW Podunk forever because it's a great community and a great place to raise my girls. And the job itself is great -- I'm the local sports guru telling a lot of great stories about hometown folks ... But if my paycheck never goes up (actually it's been going down these days for a variety of reasons), it makes you question the long-term viability of even this option... arrgg...