By NICHOLAS LEMANN
The Times literary Supplement - December 18, 2013
People tend to have little sympathy with accounts of crisis in a trade or
profession. It comes across as evidence of excessive self-preoccupation, or
as a prelude to special pleading before government. Journalism’s
difficulties seem to be drawing this kind of reaction from many people who
aren’t journalists. Isn’t the press still a swaggering, even power-abusing
actor in politics and society? Doesn’t it command vast attention and
resources? Isn’t more news being read by more people than ever before?
Out of Print: Newspapers, journalism and the business of news in the
digital age shows that something really has changed quite suddenly and
dramatically in the press industry. George Brock is a veteran newspaperman,
and his main concern in this clear-headed, synoptic and never whiny book is
with the institutions where he has spent most of his career. In the United
States, newspaper advertising revenue – the main source of economic support
by far – was $63.5 billion in 2000. By 2012 it had fallen to $19 billion.
(During the same period, advertising revenue at Google went from zero to
$46.5 billion.) Employment in the American newspaper industry fell by 44 per
cent between 2001 and 2011. In the European Union, newspaper revenue is
falling by more than 10 per cent a year. In the UK, newspaper circulation
has dropped by more than 25 per cent during the twenty-first century. It
would be hard to think of another industry that is going through such a
sudden collapse.
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