Coronavirus continues to take its toll on the media industry

It’s hard to imagine an industry more poorly prepared for the arrival of a global pandemic than the media business. Even before “coronavirus” became a household word, the industry was already reeling from a series of body blows, most of them delivered by Google and Facebook and their dominance of the advertising market. Since 2008, nearly half of US newspaper journalism jobs have disappeared, according to the LA Times, leaving fewer than 38,000 reporters, photographers, and editors. Waves of layoffs have become the norm, not just for large chains like Gannett and McClatchy but for smaller papers, and even for digital giants like BuzzFeed and Vox, who at one time were seen as the future of online media. Then along came COVID-19, and with it the unprecedented shutdown of entire cities, and the erasure of huge swaths of the advertising business. For many outlets, it will likely become what media analyst Ken Doctor calls “an extinction event.” For some it already is. The LA Times profiled one example of this sad trend. Jeff VonKaenel, 69, owner of the Sacramento News & Review and sister publications in Chico and Reno, has been running weekly newspapers for almost 50 years, and has survived wildfires, recessions, and being sued by a mayor. But the extinguishing of almost all his advertising in the wake of COVID-19 left him no other choice: four days after the virus was defined as a pandemic, VonKaenel shut down his presses for the last time and laid off all 40 members of... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-04-20 11:45:00 UTC ]

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Bolton’s memoir of the Trump administration is a bestseller before its release.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-17 16:57:46 UTC ]
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4 Shout-Outs to Publishers Doing Their Part During the COVID-19 Outbreak | May 8

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[ Folio Magazine | 2020-05-08 16:34:59 UTC ]
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Joe Biden finally addresses Tara Reade’s assault claim

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[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-05-01 12:33:41 UTC ]
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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-29 08:47:44 UTC ]
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Protocol layoffs raise some troubling questions

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[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-04-23 11:45:31 UTC ]
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A News Publisher in South Africa Briefly Considered Shutting Down but ‘Simply Could Not’

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Coronavirus continues to take its toll on the media industry

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[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-04-20 11:45:00 UTC ]
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CNN is kicking off a podcast push with a Jeffrey Epstein series

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[ Digiday | 2020-01-22 05:01:11 UTC ]
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How MyLondon Built a Hyperlocal News Brand From the Ground Up

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[ Editor & Publisher | 2020-01-07 17:45:53 UTC ]
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STM and AAP raise alarm over US policy change on Open Access

The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has written to the US Office of Science and Technology Policy expressing its “alarm” at rumours that the Trump administration is considering a “precipitous” move to require all federally funded research to be... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-18 20:30:17 UTC ]
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Reuters, Facebook Journalism Project Create E-Learning Course on Deepfakes

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[ Digiday | 2019-12-11 05:00:57 UTC ]
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After Ups and Downs, Facebook Referral Traffic to Publishers Stabilizes

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After ups and downs, Facebook referral traffic to publishers stablizes

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Forbes Media acquires stock prediction tool to help diversify its revenues

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Anonymous book describes volatile, incompetent Trump

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