Reading Between the Lines

THIS week brought another spate of bad news for newspapers. Daily circulation is down an average of 2.8 percent over the last six months, continuing a slide that started at least a decade ago. Layoffs and labor strife continued across the country, from Philadelphia to Oakland, Calif.


There’s no question the newspaper industry is “under siege,” as a MediaNews Group publisher told his employees in a memo warning of layoffs at his San Francisco Bay Area newspapers

(eastbayexpress.com). But how bad are things, really?

For starters, those circulation figures may not be as dire as they sound. A “significant portion” of the drop “results directly from the industry’s long-term, and arguably long-overdue, initiative to eliminate inefficient vanity and promotional circulation,” writes Allen Mutter on his blog, Confessions of a Newsosaur (newsosaur.blogspot.com).