file photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, in what can only be seen as a death knell for the newspaper industry “journalists” at the Bergen Record , the Daily Record and New Jersey Herald all owned by Gannett voted overwhelmingly to unionize.
The News Guild of New York said Friday the vote was 59-4 in favor of the union, which will be called the Record Guild. The results come only a week after the New York Daily News, owned by Tribune Publishing, voted 55 to 3 to be represented by the Guild. In that case, it was a return to Guild representation which had ceased at some point about 20 years earlier when then owner Mort Zuckerman refused to negotiate a new contract.
Gannett bought The Record and North Jersey Media Group in 2016, and already owned the Daily Record. The Herald came into the company portfolio two years ago when GateHouse Media and Gannett merged.
Nothing like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic . Like the rest of the media the US newspaper industry already faces an enormous credibility gap. The industry has been under very significant decline since the dawn of the internet age. A reader suggested to the Ridgewood blog , “Fake News is unionizing” or is it just a desperate attempt to save jobs in a dying industry .
U.S. newspaper circulation fell in 2018 to its lowest level since 1940, the first year with available data. Total daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) was an estimated 28.6 million for weekday and 30.8 million for Sunday in 2018. Those numbers were down 8% and 9%, respectively, from the previous year. Both figures are now below their lowest recorded levels, though weekday circulation first passed this threshold in 2013.
Newspaper revenues declined dramatically between 2008 and 2018. Advertising revenue fell from $37.8 billion in 2008 to $14.3 billion in 2018, a 62% decline.
Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers dropped by nearly half (47%) between 2008 and 2018, from about 71,000 workers to 38,000. Newspapers drove a broader decline in overall U.S. newsroom employment during that span.
Layoffs continue to pummel U.S. newspapers. Roughly a quarter (27%) of papers with an average Sunday circulation of 50,000 or more experienced layoffs in 2018. The layoffs came on top of the roughly one-third (31%) of papers in the same circulation range that experienced layoffs in 2017. What’s more, the number of jobs typically cut by newspapers in 2018 tended to be higher than in the year before.
Americans have little awareness of the financial challenges facing local newsrooms, according to a late 2018 survey. A majority of U.S. adults (71%) believe their local news media are doing well financially, even as only 14% say they have paid for local news themselves in the past year, whether through subscribing, donating or becoming a member.
Fake news is right. Gannett has thus far refused to retract a headline proclaiming that Paul Aronsohn and Roberta Sonenfeld were cleared of all ethics violation notices and fines. The violation notices and fines still remain in place!
Cancel your subscriptions to The Record, Star Ledger, NYT, etc.
Send them a message.
And stay off their web sites.
Who reads that garbage when there are so many amazing independent blogs and podcasts?
The only one that reads newspapers is pretty much senior citizens. And yes the bottom line is 90% of the stories are bullshit. Just like the Ridgewood news,
I stopped the record years ago.
they try to control the narrative and the authors of the articles usually state their left wing opinions vs the facts. and many articles are from their other papers.
And i wish they would stop throwing their shit ‘north jersey deals’ rag all over town
its NOT NEWS.. its advertising
circulation doesnt count when you toss it on the street. its LITTER
Just what newspapers need – a union. If they weren’t already dead they are now.
I’ll take any of those over this snarky blog any day. Blogs are not news. Putting “journalists” in quotes is obnoxious.
Journalism has not existed in over 40 years ,its “journalism”
A$$ kissing of democrat politicians does not qualify as journalism ,the post is correct its “journalism”
Any newspaper chain that relies upon Jeff Voigt’s submissions as much as Gannett does is destined to collapse.
VOIGT
What did he get done while snarking
Any issue while in office
Name 2 initiatives that flew ?
Ref /file
Last Angry man file.com