Hartford Courant Now Impersonating the Huffington Post

Geez, I thought only low-rent websites did stuff like this.

Newspapers have tried many ways to cover the news with dwindling resources: dropping certain topics, having people do double duty, using more wire service work. Routine plagiarism is not usually an option, but a lawsuit contends that it was for a while at The Hartford Courant.

The Journal Inquirer of Manchester, Conn., has sued The Courant, the state’s largest paper, saying that it copied The Journal Inquirer’s work in articles published last summer, a time when The Courant was also, in a subsequent admission, lifting material from several other northern Connecticut newspapers.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Connecticut Superior Court in Hartford, cites 11 Courant articles it says were largely taken from The Journal Inquirer in August and September, and The Journal Inquirer has cited other examples taken from other papers.

Plagiarism has cropped up as an occasional transgression at many publications, but it is rarely exposed as a regular practice. Calls to executives at The Courant, which is owned by the Tribune Company of Chicago, were not returned.

Online, The Courant credited many if not all of the articles to the original newspapers, Richard P. Weinstein, The Journal Inquirer’s lawyer, said. But in print, the attribution was often dropped, and the byline of a Courant writer was added. The articles were rearranged and rewritten to some extent, but some phrases from the originals remained intact.

The suit addresses only examples when no credit was given to The Journal Inquirer, but Mr. Weinstein said that even with attribution, the extent of copying violated the law. He held out the possibility that the suit could be amended to add more examples.

Mr. Weinstein said that, historically, The Courant was highly respected and was the most important news source in the region, but coming after deep newsroom cuts, the plagiarism “is just a sad, sad comment.”

Obama: Yeah, I Might Be OK With Bailing Out Newspapers

If Barack Obama thinks he's got approval ratings problems, he hasn't seen anything yet if he goes along with this lunacy.

The president said he is "happy to look at" bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

"I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them," Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called "Newspaper Revitalization Act," that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin's Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.

In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn't asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, "I don't know what, in all honesty, government can do about it."

What they can do is live or die on their own.

It's bad enough most of them are seemingly already state-run media. They wouldn't have a shred of credibility left if they took government money.

And neither would Obama and the Democrats.

Newspaper Ad Revenue Continues Death Spiral

Coming off record losses in 2008, things are getting even worse this year. Still, every media report continues to ignore the relentless leftwing slant of major newspapers as even the slightest factor.

US newspaper advertising revenue fell more than 28 percent in the first quarter of the year with both print and online posting declines, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

Print advertising revenue fell 29.7 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year to 5.9 billion dollars, according to figures posted on the NAA website.

Online advertising revenue declined 13.4 percent during the period to 696.3 million dollars.

Print and online advertising revenue were down 28.3 percent to 6.6 billion dollars during the quarter while classified advertising revenue alone declined by 42.3 percent during the period to 1.46 billion dollars.

The weak revenue figures for the first quarter come on the heels of the worst year ever for the US newspaper industry.

Total newspaper advertising revenue fell 16.6 percent in 2008 over the previous year to 37.8 billion dollars, according to the NAA.

The US newspaper industry has been struggling with competition from free classified ad sites such as Craigslist and the migration of readers to free sites online.

Tax Cuts For the Rich Newspapers

Why not a tax cut for all Washington residents and businesses? Since when are newspapers supposed to get preferential treatment?

Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state's troubled newspaper industry.

The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state's main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising.

Notice they never mention media bias as a reason why the papers are in such trouble. Nothing like ignoring the obvious.

San Francisco Chronicle Swirling the Drain

A banner week so far for crumbling newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle just the latest.

They won't be missed. My only wonder is if there are enough Democrats around to hire all these unemployed water-carriers.

The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses.

If it can't reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California's largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430.

Hearst didn't specify a savings target nor a deadline for wringing out the expenses. A Hearst spokesman didn't immediately respond to messages Tuesday.

But management made it clear that the cost-cutting will require a significant number of layoffs.

"Our current situation dictates that we accomplish these cost savings quickly," Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega wrote in a memo to the staff. "Business as usual is no longer an option."

The Chronicle has given Hearst financial headaches since the New York-based company bought the newspaper in a complex deal valued at $660 million. The late 2000 acquisition proved to be ill-timed. Shortly after Hearst took control, the San Francisco Chronicle was hard hit by a high-tech bust that caused its advertising revenue to shrivel.

Also Tuesday, the chief executive of Philadelphia's largest two daily newspapers pledged Tuesday to roll back a $232,000 raise while his company tries to reorganize in bankruptcy court.

Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which publishes The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday, 2 1/2 years after a group of local investors bought the company for more than $500 million.

Chief Executive Brian Tierney and other executives have insisted the company, while strangled by debt payments, remains profitable despite falling circulation and revenues. But some lenders balked at that analysis at Tuesday's initial hearing on the bankruptcy petition and questioned decisions being made by Tierney, a former public relations executive.

Meanwhile in New York, Journal Register Co., publisher of the New Haven (Connecticut) Register and other newspapers, won approval to continue paying basic operating costs, including employee salaries and benefits and newspaper delivery contracts. Lawyers representing lenders made no objections.

Well, we already have public funding to teach these media relics the ways of the Internet. Maybe those with a semblance of talent can take up blogging.

Heartbreak: Newspaper Circulation Continues to Plummet

Sure, they'll blame economic conditions, but another major reason why people are tuning out is the unrelenting bias of major newspapers.

There's no longer any denying it. Do you need any more evidence than this?

For those holding out for some improvement in print circulation, this morning brings disappointment. The Audit Bureau of Circulations released the latest figures for the six- month period ending September 2008 and the report shows major drops in circulation at the big metros.

According to ABC for the 507 newspapers reporting in this period, daily circulation slipped 4.6% to 38,165,848 copies. For the 571 papers, Sunday dropped 4.8% to 43,631,646 copies.

For comparison purposes, in September 2007 reporting period, daily circ fell 2.6% and Sunday was down 4.6%.

Across the country, publishers have put in place plans to cater to core readers and subscribers. It's too expensive to bulk up circulation in unprofitable areas such as third-party, newspapers in education and bonus day copies. Not in the core market defined by the newspaper? You are out of luck at least for the print edition.

All daily averages below are for Monday through Friday. The percent change compares this September period to the same period last year.

Daily circ at the New York Times fell 3.5% to 1,000,665 copies.

The Wall Street Journal (as we reported last week) was virtually flat, up about 1,800 copies on a daily basis to 2,011,999. USA Today was also up a fraction of a percent to 2,293,310 copies.

But The Washington Post's daily circulation declined 1.9% to 622,714. Sunday was down 3.1% to 866,057. At the Los Angeles Times circ decreased a little more 5% daily and on Sunday to 739,147 and 1,055,076, respectively. Daily circulation at the Chicago Tribune was down 7.7% to 516,032. Sunday declined 5.7% to 864,845 copies.

The San Francisco Chronicle lost 7% of its daily circulation to 339,430 copies while Sunday was down a hair more, 7.4% to 398,116. The San Jose Mercury News was down slightly, 1.9% to 224,199 and Sunday was down much more, 4.3% to 241,518.

On the East Coast, daily circulation at The Boston Globe plummeted 10.1% to 323,983 copies. Sunday circ was down 8.4% to 503,659. The Baltimore Sun’s daily circ declined 5.9% to 218,923 while Sunday fell 3.8% to 350,640.

Daily circulation at The Philadelphia Inquirer slipped 11.0% to 300,674 copies. Sunday plunged 13.7% to 556,426. At the Daily News in Philly, daily circ slipped 13.2% to 97,694.

If you ever need any evidence why circulation at the Philadelphia Inquirer is shrinking, look no further than this lunacy.

Newspaper Ad Revenue in Freefall

It's a grim quagmire. Maybe they should all just give up and go strictly online.

For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.

Ad revenue, the primary source of newspaper income, began sliding two years ago, and as hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs, the decline has only accelerated.

On top of long-term changes in the industry, the weak economy is also hurting ad sales, especially in Florida and California, where the severe contraction of the housing markets has cut deeply into real estate ads. Executives at the Hearst Corporation say that one of their biggest papers, The San Francisco Chronicle, is losing $1 million a week.

Over all, ad revenue fell almost 8 percent last year. This year, it is running about 12 percent below that dismal performance, and company reports issued last week suggested a 14 percent to 15 percent decline in May.

“Never in my most bearish dreams six months ago did I think we’d be talking about negative 15 percent numbers against weak comps,” said Peter S. Appert, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. “I think the probability is very high that there will be a number of examples of individual newspapers and newspaper companies that fall into a loss position. And I think it’s inevitable that there will be closures in this industry, and maybe bankruptcies.”

Analysts and newspaper executives find themselves revising their forecasts downward every few months, unable to gain a stable footing on a sinking floor. Papers have cut costs by shedding thousands of workers, eliminating some distribution routes and printing fewer, smaller pages, but profit margins continue to shrink.

Beating a dead horse, of course, but they have only themselves to blame. You turn off readers long enough with the relentlessly leftwing bias and the readers just aren't going to waste their money or time on you. There are far too many options for news consumers and people aren't going to pay to be insulted. You lose circulation and the advertsers follow.

Basic stuff. Problem is they'll never get it and now the natural result will be some newspapers ceasing to exist.

Grim Milestone: Newspaper Death Spiral Accelerating

They'll blame it on the faltering economy, the Internet, whatever. But an undeniable fact is people are tuning out newspapers in record numbers because they're sick and tired of the product.

Relentless leftwing bias has a price, and now they're paying it.

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years.

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 -- including online revenue -- decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

There are signs that online revenue is beginning to slow as well. Internet ad revenue in 2007 grew 18.8% to $3.2 billion compared to 2006. In 2006, online ad revenue had soared 31.4% to $2.6 billion. In 2005, it jumped 31.4% to $2 billion.

As newspaper Web sites generate more advertising revenue, the growth rate naturally slows.

Apparently it hasn't occurred to anyone that if they weren't so biased they might be able to lure some readers back, hence increasing potential ad revenue.

Newspaper Circulation Continues to Plummet

It will be interesting to see how the big newpapers spin this, but it appears to be an industry-wide calamity. Even the right-of-center New York Post, which has been gaining while others slipped, experienced a decline.

Clearly online availability, the fact people don't have as much time to devote to reading an entire newspaper, and a lack of readership among the younger demographics is taking a toll on the industry.

Relentless leftwing bias is also a factor, I would surmise.

Many Top Papers Take Big Hits

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains.

For The New York Times, daily circulation fell 4.51% to 1,037,828 and Sunday plunged 7.59% to 1,500,394, at least partly due to a price increase.

Daily circulation at The Washington Post was down 3.2% to 635,087 and Sunday was down 3.9% to 894,428.

Daily circulation at The Boston Globe tumbled 6.6% to 360,695 and Sunday fell about the same, 6.5% to 548,906.

The Wall Street Journal was down 1.53% to 2,011,882 daily but USA Today posted a gain of 1% to 2,293,137.

The New York Post slipped this period with daily circ down 5.2% to 667,119 and Sunday fell 5% to 405,486. The New York Daily News also showed declines in daily circ down 1.7% to 681,415 while Sunday decreased 6.8% to 726,305.

Chicago Tribune - daily circulation slipped 2.9% to 559,404 and Sunday fell 2% to 917,868.

It's sister publication, the Los Angeles Times grew slightly up 0.5% to 779,682 while Sunday fell 5.1% to 1,112,165.

Daily and Sunday circulation at the San Francisco Chronicle has stabilized, down 2.9% to 365,234 and 0.6% to 430,115, respectively.

Both The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News experienced deep declines -- over 10%.

The Philadelphia Inquirer slipped on Sunday but gained 2.3% daily.

As expected, circulation -- at least paid circulation -- continues to decline sharply. For the past several years, publishers, particularly those at major metros, have been whittling back on circulation considered to be less useful by advertisers. Those papers fall into the category of other paid, which includes hotel, Newspapers in Education, employee, and third party copies.

The Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and San Diego Union-Tribune in particular suffered steep declines, all down by at least 7.6%.

Maybe they can save some money by shedding some of those layers of editors who consistently fail to properly do their job.

Newspaper Ad Revenue in Freefall

The headscratching continues in newsrooms across the land, as executives are perplexed as to why ad revenues continue to plummet (via Instapundit).

This may be an overly simplistic explanation, but two words come to mind: liberal bias.

At USA Today, the nation’s biggest newspaper, ad revenue was down 14 percent this February, compared with February last year. Gannett, which owns USA Today and is the nation’s biggest newspaper company, reported that its overall ad revenue declined 3.8 percent in February from February 2006.

Ad revenue at The New York Times Company fell 6 percent overall, declining 7.5 percent at The New York Times; ad revenue at the company’s New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe, was down 4 percent. At The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones, it was off 10 percent.

The Tribune Company, whose papers include The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun, reported losses of more than 5 percent. So did McClatchy, whose papers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

Even papers in smaller markets, which are shielded from some of the forces buffeting some of the bigger metro dailies, saw losses in February. Ad revenue for the publishing division of Media General, which owns The Tampa Tribune, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Winston-Salem Journal, were down 5.8 percent.

There's no denying the overwhelming majority of newspapers lean far to the left. That point is no longer debatable. Still, online ad revenue rose, so they're not exactly going out of business--just yet. But just like their counterparts at the television networks who are losing their viewers in droves, those running these operations seem reluctant to admit the error of their ways and continue moving away from their audience.

I take no particular joy in seeing the decline of this medium, as I have friends and former colleagues still in the business. But there is a supreme arrogance when it comes to the media that turns off so many people. Most of that is denial of the obvious and the unwillingness to admit they have a problem, instead choosing to look elsewhere to point fingers.

The newspaper companies blamed the declines largely on the continuing shift of classified advertisers from print to online, especially to mostly free sites like Craig’s List. In some cases, particularly in Florida and California, they traced the weaknesses to volatile real estate markets.

The shift away from traditional readership and a younger audience is a factor, as well as people just no longer having time to spend reading a paper from front to back.

Online spending is projected to continue to grow, and many newspapers are investing more and more in their Web sites. But so far, the online revenue is too small to begin to compensate for the losses from print advertising.

Mr. Parr, the Jupiter analyst, said that gap was going to force the industry to adapt to survive and that the February results were just a symptom of this larger struggle.

“There is absolutely no question that the next 10 years are going to be really bad for the newspaper business,” he said. “This is a time of wrenching change and chaos. All of our assumptions about newspapers are going to be changed. The format, the business model, the organization of newspapers have outlived their usefulness.”

Part of that restructuring should involve reaching out to the audience they've lost, though I'd venture to say in most cases, those former readers are not coming back. Alternative media have made inroads and people are more willing to cherrypick their news from various sources rather than rely on one newspaper for their information. Newspapers should also consider their allegiance to the wire services, the Associated Press and Reuters, in particular.

They're paying a price for their arrogance.