Finally some good news

Just in time too. I don’t know about anyone else out there but I was getting a bit depressed and discouraged about the whole business of print journalism. At my core I truly believe and understand the importance of tangible things such as newspapers, but all the doomsday predictions and declining percentages had me really second guessing the future of print journalism.

That was until newspapers sales after election day. People apparently were running out of newspapers as they flew off the stands in record numbers.

As we have talked a lot about biases and other problems facing the coverage of the recent election maybe the publics interest has shown that right or wrong the media as a whole has taped into record breaking audiences.

Whether it was the historic nature of the election, or the way it was covered can be debated. I would like to think it was a combination of the two, what does everyone else think?

TV news enjoyed a record 71.5 million viewers tuning into watch. ABC was at the top of the prime time viewership and CNN, with the aid of some special effects, historically brought in the most viewers overall.



Newspapers also enjoyed a surge of interest increasing output in some cases up 60%.
Here are some quotes, that sum it up better than I can ,from an article titled “A Strange Global Phenomenon Occurred Wednesday – People Were Lining Up To Buy Newspapers, Many Outlets Sold Out, And Additional Press Runs Were The Order Of The Day,” by Philip M. Stone.

Digby Solomon, publisher of the Daily Press, in Newport News, Virginia - “We anticipated some additional demand, but this was an historic election… and (we) completely underestimated it, It shows that when something truly historic takes place, people want a printed record of it.”
But perhaps what newspaper publishers need to remember most – they could do a lot worse than use it as a tagline for an advertising campaign reminding the public that newspapers are published every day, not just the day after Election Day – is what Shirley Holman, 59, of Dallas said: Seeing the news in print "makes it real."

Surely there’s a message there for publishers that if they put out a quality editorial product that its populace is really interested in, then print newspapers do just fine. Sure, the election of a Black man as President of the United States was historic and exceptional, but it goes to show people have not forgotten newspapers, and newspapers need to keep coming out with editorial products that people want to read, even keep.

So for me I am skeptical if Obama will really bring any of the change he promised, but if anything else thanks to him maybe newspapers can use this historical event as a spring board to reestablish the legitimacy with advertisers and naysayers alike.

Maybe if newspapers in the end don’t make it they won’t have anyone to blame except themselves for not putting out a quality product people want and feel is important. That quality I think lies in the hands of the journalists writing, taking the pictures, and helping put the final product together.