Your Incredible Shrinking Paper

Still read a printed daily newspaper? If it's one of the bigger metro papers, take a close look it because it's shrinking right before your eyes even though the subscription cost is probably rising.

Yes, that's right, the paper is getting smaller by the day and dropping many of the things you once took for granted: analysis pieces, in depth coverage of your local school board, even comics. All have disappeared and are not likely to return anytime soon, if ever.

The economic implosion within the newspaper industry, with advertising revenue off by 20 percent or more depending on the region, means the look and content of many papers is drastically different from what it was just two years ago.

With ad revenue way down and the Internet attracting many time-pressed viewers, larger newspapers have shed jobs (40,000 jobs were lost in 2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), reduced syndicated services (comics, columnists) and even sliced the size of their products (width and pages).

Sure, some larger papers will survive and thrive. The Wall Street Journal, for example, has managed to find a way for its print and online operations to peacefully (and profitably) co-exist.

But for some papers, monetizing online operations isn't the answer -- damage to the print side's bottom line is too severe. So, as some of my friends still in the industry say, it's "like dead men walking" in the newsroom as they wait for the next round of layoffs and cost-cuts to hit.

The current number of newspaper jobs, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now at a level last seen in the mid-1950s. By those stats, the newspaper industry peaked in 1988 and has since declined gradually until the recession and Internet accelerated the pace in 2008 and 2009.


Metro papers aren't poised to make a comeback, according to a recent report by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher. And overall newspaper jobs are projected to decline by 25 percent by 2018, the labor bureau reported.

True, there are plenty of opportunities for "citizen journalists" to write for the Web at such sites as Suite101, Examiner and Elance. These places exist, for the most part, in a virtual world -- no ink, no paper, no newsroom buzz.

For those who began their journalism careers on IBM electric typewriters and pawed the library stacks looking for yellowing print clips, the bricks and mortar of a newspaper newsroom still stand in their mind's eye.

That shrinking newspaper in your hands serves as a token reminder of what was once real, timely, complete and important in your daily life.

As for me, I practice what I preach in this blog and at writenowworks.com.