Why they hate us, part MMCCII
Why does the L.A. Times' circulation continue to drop? There are as many diagnoses as there are doctors:
While three of the largest newspapers in the country had rises in their circulation figures, the LA Times had the largest drop both in absolute numbers and in percentage drop.
And then there are the editorials, not quite as knee-jerk leftist as a couple of years ago, but still pretty silly. And the op-ed page: a repository of high-minded ignorance from the likes of Rosa Brooks and Erin Aubry Kaplan and other worthies with little to say, poor writing skills, little information to reveal, few analytic talents, but a column to file each week. Even the ineffable Robert Scheer was worth more space than this crew.
I find it interesting that papers with a reputation for being conservative, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post actually have increases in growth while the liberal papers, the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post and Minneapolis Star Tribune are all down.
Five straight years of declining circulation, five straight years of pedophile priest stories, five straight years of Cardinal-bashing, five straight years of burgeoning Catholic regional growth, and still none of the local fishwraps are getting a clue about how sustained Catholic-bashing equals sustained drops in circulation. Good luck with Sam at the joystick!
Put aside the long line of Times' scandals—whether the Staples Center special, Michael Hiltzik's sock-puppetry, the leasing of the Sunday opinion section to the editor's girlfriend's boss or the latest, Armeniagate--the real laugher is the paper's sense of importance, its preening about its role even as it became obvious to all that it was the Norma Desmond of Los Angeles media. Patterico is the real expert here, and even an hour spent rummaging through his archives will confirm the very harsh truth: The Times is an awful newspaper that doesn't have a clue about how awful it is or how it happened.
I hate the bias of Big Media in general and the L.A. Times in particular, but I don’t think it’s that bias that is driving these numbers. Rather, it’s the transformation of how people get their news, due to the revolution of the Web.
However, the two issues are not entirely unrelated. With the Internet comes access to a tremendous diversity of information sources—many far more accurate in their specific niches than the newspapers. More and more people are taking note, and faith in the news media, I think, is cratering as quickly as the circulation numbers, as Big Media’s bias is increasingly put on display.
People Hate the L.A. Times
And circulation continues to crash.
Not only did L.A. Times circulation take another hit today — down more than four percent — but Editor & Publisher named N. Christian Anderson III of the Orange County Register its Publisher of the Year. That even though the Register's circulation slipped 5% daily and 7% Sunday.
...the latter I reminded the biased reporter asking questions about the LA Times circulation numbers last week, and how the LAT has argely become irrelevant in a city where half the people are functionally illiterate. Their op-ed pages advocate a kamikaze mission for the LAT: support policy which effectively eliminates engish-speakers.
Here are the none-too-pretty numbers:
1. USA Today, 2,278,022, up 0.2 percent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,062,312, up 0.6 percent
3. The New York Times, 1,120,420, down 1.9 percent
4. Los Angeles Times, 815,723, down 4.2 percent
5. New York Post, 724,748, up 7.6 percent
6. New York Daily News, 718,174, up 1.4 percent
7. The Washington Post, 699,130, down 3.5 percent
8. Chicago Tribune, 566,827, down 2.1 percent
9. Houston Chronicle, 503,114, down 2 percent
10. The Arizona Republic, 433,731, down 1.1 percent
11. Dallas Morning News, 411,919, down 14.3 percent
12. Newsday, Long Island, 398,231, down 6.9 percent
13. San Francisco Chronicle, 386,564, down 2.9 percent
14. The Boston Globe, 382,503, down 3.7 percent
15. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., 372,629, down 6.1 percent
16. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 357,399, down 2.1 percent
17. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 352,593, up 0.6 percent
18. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 345,252, down 4.9 percent
19. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 344,704, up 0.5 percent
20. Detroit Free Press, 329,989, down 4.7 percent
Blogs like this are the future of the Times. But It needs to evolve and become more interactive with a kick-#@! redesign. Video blogs and debates about today's stories would catch on like wildfire.
As for the print edition, it will always be there, reading the paper is something you appreciate as you get older. Who wants to sit 50 hours a week in front of a computer, then sit in front of it again on the weekend for the news. Paper is to man as butt is to couch.
Mark my words, the printed newspaper will always be in circulation.
Posted by: Graham | May 02, 2007 at 10:51 PM
Who knows how many people read the Los Angeles Times. I mean combining print version and web version.
Believe it or not, I still am a subscriber to the paper version!
A lot of the time I wonder why. Putting it on the web is like giving a free paper to the very people who probably are most able to afford to pay.
Too much free content on the web from too many sources. Too much competition. On the web, its like every media outlet is competing against every other media outlet. New York TImes vs. BBC vs. Al Jazeera vs. Beijing Review vs. MSNBC. Last ones standing will be those that either are government subsidied or have deep pockets parent companies that need "content" to sell technology.
The biggest problem with old media like the L.A. Times has been the cluelessness of senior management to new technologies that are flooding out out of the laboratories and manufacturing plants. For too long, new technology to an old media company like the Los Angeles TImes meant a new type of printing press or a new type of vending machine.
Posted by: Richard H | May 03, 2007 at 09:18 AM
Mailander is hilarious. Any reporting on any pedophile scandal involving the Catholic Church is automatically "Catholic bashing". I suppose he would prefer that priests were allowed to bugger young boys without anyone finding out about it... of course, he doesn't bother to add that the increase in Catholics is also likely primarily an increase in non-English reading Hispanics. I got to encounter him in the Jim Newton chat... what a wingnut.
Posted by: Rob McMillin | May 03, 2007 at 12:32 PM
So how many hits is the LA Times website getting? How's Opinion LA doing?
Posted by: Ken Shultz | May 04, 2007 at 12:29 PM
The Los Angeles Times cannot survive via the inter-net; the lifeblood of a media is paid advertising (number of column inch revenue dollars); No media are healthy because of inter-net advertising. I don't have a clue what advertisers are in front of my eyes when I check out the LA Times on-line. Duh! The main reason car dealers, furniture stores and banks continue to advertise in print media is that the media buyers can thumb tack their tear sheets to their cubicle walls. It has nothing to do with the effectiveness of
the newspaper circulation. Los Angeles Times? Think Hindenburg.
Date sensitive.
Posted by: yours truly, johnny dollar | May 06, 2007 at 07:47 AM
LA Times delivery service in Porter Ranch is just awful. No one's reading that paper if they can't get it at my doorstep by 7. And on the weekends it arrives at 9!!! Or sometimes it just doesn't show up. Forget about it!!! Wallstreet Journal is a little too much. I like NY Times, but it's NY. So I'll try USA Today. I've never heard of USA today but I just signed up.
Posted by: cynthia cook | July 29, 2007 at 06:40 AM
If you notice which papers are going up in circulation, that should answer your question as to why the LA Times is so far down. I read and view many different sources for my news. I have found the liberal newspapers like the Washington Post and The New York Times and yours to have gone extremely far left, and to have become dishonest and so anti American that I can no longer trust the reporting to be honest coverage. There is a difference between differences of opinion and hating your country and distorting the news. The New York Times is guilty of treasonous acts in leaking national security secrets that could bring down our country. Yours and papers like yours do not reflect the views of too many Americans and they are looking elsewhere for news for at least honesty and balance and integrity. Sorry, the truth sometimes is hard to hear.
Posted by: C. Anderson | October 31, 2007 at 09:38 PM
Why are the numbers dropping? Because when people read a newspaper they want to read the NEWS, not 100 pages of left-wing opinions which are not only not fact-based, but in direct opposition to what most Americans believe to be the truth.
Perhaps the LA Times and others could learn a great deal from the works of such REAL journalists as Edward R. Murrow, William L. Shirer and Nick Pileggi,. i.e. get your facts straight, tell the story as objectively as possible and let the readers decide. Nobody wants to read a Nanny newspaper that does nothing but club us over the heads with their biased crap.
Not holding my breath.
Posted by: JohnnyT | October 31, 2007 at 09:50 PM
Yet another story about a poor, put-upon illegal immigrant - how many do we have to read? Or stories about unknown actors? Or political stories in the Calendar section? The last good story I read (actually series of stories) was on the conservator business running amok in L.A. and the surrounding areas. When was that, two years ago??
Posted by: Lisa | October 31, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Probably because most people choose not to pay for information that is false. Just a hunch. Tim Rutten ring any bells? Subscribe to the New York Post and read it to see how it's done. It's really not that hard.
Posted by: Gary | November 01, 2007 at 06:40 AM
I don't read the LA times because the LA times censors pro-conservative news.
I don't really mind the left-wing bias (everybody has bias), but active censorship is unacceptable.
They probably don't even KNOW who Michael Yon is.
Posted by: Jesse | November 01, 2007 at 11:16 AM
A prime example why the LA Times and other MSM rags are losing the circulation wars: coverage of the Iraq War. Michael Yon and other bloggers in-country go on patrol with our fighting forces, witness the firefights first-hand, see, feel and smell the carnage at the site of the car bombings, follow the political front, the pulse of the story as it happens, with details, specifics, photos, and analysist from KNOWLEDGEABLE participants. We learn who's who, what's what, how the tribal leaders are working together to put Al-Qaeda on the run, how the Iraqi Army is coming of maturity and starting to carry it's weight, and how the major players are planning to deal with Iran and Syria. Meanwhile in the LAT, we get a mixture of wire-service feed from "reporters" too scared to leave their hotels, and bimbettes back in El Lay pontificating about how the "war is lost". Which source people are going to rely on is clearly a no-brainer...
Posted by: Stan de SD | November 01, 2007 at 09:31 PM