Opinions In My Mail Box

Power Line has some thoughts on declining newspaper circulation:

Howard Kurtz reports the latest statistics on newspaper circulation, as provided by Editor and Publisher. They show some astonishing declines from just last year:

The Sun in Baltimore dropped a staggering 11.5% in daily circulation and 8.4% in Sunday circulation. The Chicago Tribune was down 6.6% daily and 4.6% Sunday. The Rocky Mountain News experienced a decline of 6.6% in daily copies and The Denver Post lost 6.3% in daily copies as well. The Miami Herald was down 3.7% in daily copies. Sunday slipped 3.9%. The Washington Post reported daily copies down 2.6% and Sunday was down 2.4%. The Cleveland Plain Dealer lost about 5% daily. The Los Angeles Times dropped 6.4% daily and 7.9% Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal has a rambling piece about the causes of the decline and what newspapers are doing in response. It seems pretty clear to me that you don't lose 5 percent or more of your readers in a year because young people like the internet. You lose 5 percent or more of your readers in a year because you've alienated lots of readers. That certainly explains why I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post in 2004. Indeed, I wonder whether the Editor and Publisher numbers have more than a little to do with the 2004 election. If so, newspapers have two options -- hope that future elections are cancelled or try to become less biased.

I'm not the "you pissed me off, cancel my subscription" type of guy. That doesn't mean I don't notice things. In my household we subscribe to the following publications:

The Washington Post (weekly edition)
The New York Times Book Review
Wine Enthusiast
The Atlantic
The Progressive Populist
The American Prospect
First Things
Time

Now, if we could do some sort of DNA testing on these publications to determine how alike they were to one another we would first find three completely unrelated publications (Wine Enthusiast (obviously), The Atlantic and First Things.) The other five would reveal a certain amount of in-breeding (if you like.) The Book Review would prove to be more of a distant cousin to the remaining four publications. It is these four (The Washington Post, The Progressive Populist, The American Prospect and Time) that most closely resemble one another.

In fact I'd argue that the closest relationship, say that of siblings, would be between The Washington Post and The Progressive Populist, with Time and The American Prospect holding the posts of first cousins. Part of the close resemblance of the Post to the Populist can be chalked up to their use of the same editorial cartoons that are sprinkled throughout both publications. (The Post doesn't publish Tom Tomorrow or Ted Rall, but otherwise they often pick the exact same ones.) I'd argue, however, they have much more in common editorially than that. There is a certain Democratic Party chauvinism that animates The Progressive Populist, which is fine for them (it is their raison d'etre after all.) That the same could be justly said of The Washington Post should be more troubling for any newspaper that prides itself on its independant character.

The American Prospect is an obviously left of center publication that has no trouble in being independant, and if I could honestly say the Post was most like it it would be a healthy sign for the Post. As things stand today I cannot say that the weekly edition of Post seems healthy at all.

I won't cancel my subscription because they have ticked me off, but it is increasingly difficult to justify keeping that subscription instead of subscribing to something else, like The Economist.