Tallahassee Democrat, and so many more
When did the capital city lose its hometown, paper of record? When I first started working here, in 2020, I noticed the old newspaper building was closed, with a historical marker telling passersby there used to be a newspaper there.
Recently I met a wonderful 90 yr old women who taught school for many decades and now, in her retirement grows a massive garden in her backyard to give food away to people in her community of Greenwood. I thought it would be a lovely human interest story. So I looked for a phone number to the city desk, only to find there wasnt one. The only number the chain newspaper that owns the name of the paper is the customer service line to speak to someone about your bill or to start or stop home delivery. They still deliver a paper printed in Panama City. And yes, they are now mostly an online paper. I will throw no stones as Better Than The Times, my newest publication is online only, at least for now: https://betterthanthetimes.com/ I googled news desk for the Tallahassee Democrat. I found a number, but it is a recorded message, telling to either leave a message and hope for a call back, or send them a written message at a given email address. The message also said the newsroom is not open to the public. One gets the distinct impression there is no newsroom... I know i am old, but it does seem like a city of well over 200,000 people and the capital city, should be able to support more than a pretend paper with pretend offices. Gannett, shame on you! are we to assume all these cities are now served by a fake newspaper, too?
I understand we are relics, and maybe the under 30s don’t?care, but I kinda bet if they still had the papers we have even 30 years ago, young people would love them, too.
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Like so much in America, I don’t think lack of interest, as much as greed and the drive to maximize profit over all else is at the root of this demise. The combined circulation of printed magazines have continued to climb and are somewhere around?220 million copies sold each year.generating over $26 billion! That tells me, dailies could still be profitable?with good quality journalism, especially?if they focused on local in depth stories, human interest, etc. they can’t keep up with the instantaneous?headline news on our phones and websites, but if they did the great work of traditional papers, the market would still be there.
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By the way, there are nearly 8000 commercial magazines, netting about 7 billion out of the 26 billion, or just under a million dollars average per pub, of course the biggest 5-10 mags probably get the lion's share, but the point is, people will pay for a printed copy of quality?content. Comics, crosswords, letters to the editor, local columns, and yes local sports and stories like my little 90 year old, we can get our headlines?elsewhere. Of course if they cut the staff and cut way back on physical distribution they probably bump the profits up, because accountants have been running American businesses for the past?40 years, maybe longer.
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There was a time when even the capitalist cared about building cars, or printing papers, or making ice cream. They had to make a reasonable profit in our system, but they wanted to say," yes, I own Joe Smith Ice Cream and it is the best ice cream I know how to make." That seems to be so rare today...
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if I had Bezos’s?money, instead of hiring Murdoch's crook to run the Post, it would have been interesting to invest a few billion in creating a national paper that did something like what I am talking about, and see if there wouldn’t?be enough add and subscription support to make a dollar or two more than it cost him...