Monday, March 23, 2009

The Decline of Newspapers: A Wrinkle

A notable exception to the rule on the death of print journalism: The Austin Chronicle. From an article in the NY Times:

At a time when daily newspapers seem to be going away at the rate of one a week and weeklies are madly cutting to stay afloat, The Chronicle, which has revenue of approximately $8.5 million a year, has not laid off anyone, has no plans to do so, and its business is off just 7 percent in the last three years.


Major dailies are dying off at an alarming rate. But the Chronicle thrives. A big part of this can be credited to SXSW, which is run by the Chron. But, also, it's the paper itself. I've never seen a paper tied so closely to a community the way Austin is to its Chronicle. It's all local stuff. Everyone reads it every week. And people talk about it.

Writing for that paper was an honor, and if I still lived there, I'd still write for them. Here's hoping they continue to thrive.

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