Whither My Newspaper

Category: Preservation

Published on Sunday, 03 May 2009 20:15

Written by Randy Garbin

I suspect that if tomorrow I decided to cancel my newspaper subscriptions, I’d barely miss them after less then a week. Currently we subscribe to a full week of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Sunday New York Times. A few weeks ago, the Inquirer in yet another cost cutting move, shunted its Sunday comics into the tabloid-​sized TV listings. At a time when probably only aging baby boomers (such as myself, sadly) even read the comics, they’ve shrunk them still further.

Every year, the daily newspaper gives us yet one more reason to cancel the subscription. When I first moved to this area and subscribed, the Inquirer still had its Sunday magazine and a whole host of other features that made the paper something of joy to read. Its arts, business, and local sections bulged with content. The comic pages spread across eight pages.

Since then, the it killed the magazine, combined arts with business on Saturdays, killed the flimsy Image section that the magazine became, wiped out the local commentary page, shrunk its size and on and on and on.

Of course, the industry complains of dwindling readership and it must do what it can to protect its 25%(!) profit margins. Excuse me, but what did you nimrods do with all those profits you reaped even in a period of decline? Spend it on marketing yourself to new readers? Innovate on the internet? Invest in better content?

No, it all went to shareholders, apparently. It certainly didn’t go into the product.

Ford is losing billions, and yet we don’t see them installing wooden benches in their cars to replace those expensive plush bucket seats. Imagine a company that responds to a decline in sales by making its product LESS attractive to its customers. Well, friends, as a prime example of that idiocy, I give you the great American newspaper industry. May it rest in peace.