Dead Trees
Dead Trees. I like 'em. That is to say, when they are printed with news and cartoons.
For someone like me who draws editorial cartoons, I get nervous when the latest figures come out showing, yet again, that newspaper circulation has dropped. A story earlier this week in USA Today says that overall circulation has dropped 2.6 percent in the last six months. The New York Times is down a depressing 4.51%
The web has delivered the goods in the news and blog department, but it hasn't presented a good model for getting revenue yet. My other form of income is drawing illustrations for print papers and there's nary a website that pays for original illustrations.
Here in Portland, the Oregonian managed to only slip only 1.2 percent.
The Willamette Week speculates the slower-than-most decline may be due in part to the new design of the street edition they launched in June, which features a front page "designed to capture pedestrians’ pocket change with huge photos and sexy (ick) headlines that pump up sports, woodland creatures, rape and TV reruns."
I subscribe to the Oregonian and get a normal looking paper at my stoop every morning. But in the boxes on the street they redesign the front with screaming headlines and pictures reminiscent of a NY Post cover. I've always disliked it as it sensationalizes news and spotlights frivolous stories. It must be working though. People respond well to bright lights, loud colors, bells and whistles.
Is this the future of the daily paper?
After all, the newspaper started in an age when there was no cable news and i phones to get news from. A sea of text looked appealing. Some did try an ancient form of this though. It's unimaginable today, but in the early 20th century some papers would place political cartoons on their front page to catch the reader's eye.
Imagine that.
For someone like me who draws editorial cartoons, I get nervous when the latest figures come out showing, yet again, that newspaper circulation has dropped. A story earlier this week in USA Today says that overall circulation has dropped 2.6 percent in the last six months. The New York Times is down a depressing 4.51%
The web has delivered the goods in the news and blog department, but it hasn't presented a good model for getting revenue yet. My other form of income is drawing illustrations for print papers and there's nary a website that pays for original illustrations.
Here in Portland, the Oregonian managed to only slip only 1.2 percent.
The Willamette Week speculates the slower-than-most decline may be due in part to the new design of the street edition they launched in June, which features a front page "designed to capture pedestrians’ pocket change with huge photos and sexy (ick) headlines that pump up sports, woodland creatures, rape and TV reruns."
I subscribe to the Oregonian and get a normal looking paper at my stoop every morning. But in the boxes on the street they redesign the front with screaming headlines and pictures reminiscent of a NY Post cover. I've always disliked it as it sensationalizes news and spotlights frivolous stories. It must be working though. People respond well to bright lights, loud colors, bells and whistles.
Is this the future of the daily paper?
After all, the newspaper started in an age when there was no cable news and i phones to get news from. A sea of text looked appealing. Some did try an ancient form of this though. It's unimaginable today, but in the early 20th century some papers would place political cartoons on their front page to catch the reader's eye.
Imagine that.
posted by Matt Bors at
11:34 AM
3 Comments:
I think the future of newspapers is this: free daily papers.
They're more common in England, but it made a splash in America fairly recently. There's about 50 of them now.
They tend to be very local, and studies have shown they are popular with people under the age of 40.
Of course, since this is sold for free, they need lots of advertisements.
Not sure what this means for editorial cartooning. But at least one free daily employes one: Nate Beeler of the Washington Examiner.
I've been in your neck of the country this week on business and every morning there is a paper outside my door. I didn't ask for it so I don't read it, and it's clear a lot of other people in the hotel also aren't reading their papers. I wonder if these papers are counted in the distribution numbers. If every hotel stop getting the local paper for each guest I wonder how much the numbers would drop.
Charles--I think there will be more of those myself A twice weekly local paper started recently in Portland and I run in a small free daily in San Francisco.
Tysen--there are a lot of ways newspapers up there numbers. I suspect if we knew the true readership of most advertisers would freak. A lot of people who pick up the weekly papers like one thing--savage love, a comic strip, etc--and don't see 1/100th of the ads or content.
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