Bacon's Rebellion

Honey, I Shrunk the Newspaper

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Newspapers are dying slow deaths of a thousand small cuts. Here’s the latest from the Richmond Times-Dispatch…

According to Executive Editor Chris Coates, beginning July 4, the RTD will switch to a “digital-only format” on the following holidays: Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day.

Translation, the RTD will stop publishing its print newspaper on nine major holidays.

I’m surprised he left off Juneteenth.

Coates could have mentioned that the RTD will be in good company. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t publish on holidays either. Not even Juneteenth. It doesn’t publish Sundays either. I wonder if that’s the next step for the RTD.

But, hey, as Coates noted, you’ll still get the news. “The printed newspaper is just one piece in a portfolio that includes our website, mobile app, video, multimedia, social media and events.” He didn’t announce any fresh newsroom cuts. At least for now.

Then, getting to what’s really important to print subscribers, Coates closed: “For those who enjoy our comics and puzzles, we’ll be printing the ones that would normally appear in the July 4 edition a day earlier with the July 3 comics and puzzles, so you won’t miss any.”

— JAB

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38 responses to “Honey, I Shrunk the Newspaper”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    The puzzles and the sports page have to be the most popular features now…the news and opinion content is so anemic and predictable. But even in our day the sports pages beat out the news readership, eh? Christmas was the only day we didn't publish in Roanoke, as I recall, but of course that meant somebody had to be there on Christmas to publish on Dec. 26. More than one Christmas Day I had the "night cops" assignment and had to man the desk.

    Haven't taken the print edition for a while now. I'm sure we never will again. I just wish the RTD website wasn't so feckless and disorganized. I see a story highlighted, then go back a little later and cannot even find it without a search. AI runs it now, I'm sure! Other stories seem to linger there for days or weeks…The WSJ website is soooooo much more useful.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Comics… don’t forget, Dilbert! Wait?! That comma, is that right?

  2. Teddy007 Avatar
    Teddy007

    There is no funding stream to keep a newspaper functional and not losing money. And no one has figured out how to do local news as an app or website. There is just not enough revenue.

    And sports is dominated by national websites/apps. It is why people are not so much fans of the local team anymore.

  3. Raz Al Gore Avatar
    Raz Al Gore

    The decline of print media is lamentable. I’ve had to make due with Virginia Gentry on Substack, as well as the Abbeville Institute since they digitized.

    1. KnowNothing Avatar
      KnowNothing

      Hi Raz – I also love Abbeville! Though for current news, AMREN.com is the only outlet actually trying to highlight reality when it comes to black on white crime. They used to be print also.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I don't know what percent of costs the print is for a paper but it's the staffing that is clearly a major cost and it's reduced staffing that results in less and less "news"no matter whether online or print.

    So, many folks do not want to "pay" for news now that the subsidies from ADs went away. So WHERE do people WANT to get their "news" these days if not the conventional news sources?

    There is STILL actual "covered" "news" in RTD and other papers, it's just a lot less. There may be one or two articles now verses 10 or 20 before.

    Like Haner, I also subscribe to WSJ (as well as NYT and WaPo) but on all 3, one does have to discern the difference between news and opinion although some folks claim they are the same these days!

    Heckfire, these days, some folks say you can't believe the govt websites nor scientists… !

    1. walter smith Avatar
      walter smith

      You can't. "Safe and effective." "Came from a bat" Masks and social distancing. How come the BLS overstates jobs 80-90% of the time and quietly adjusts later? What is the real deficit?
      Sorry. I trust no numbers from the government. It's a shame, but they have earned the distrust. And that applies to whether Rs or Ds are in charge, but the Ds are especially suspicious. The Rs actually know the lapdog media propaganda arm of the Ds will call out glaring mistakes (and make up some , too – the Rs live with Stockholm Syndrome).

    2. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/06/05/fauci-hearing-covid-social-distancing-wrong/73962967007/

      1. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        Larry – you are always wrong. The only willful ignorance on steroids "in my view" is your eternal, unquestioning love of Big Brother. Even when shown facts, repeatedly, you refuse to acknowledge them. There was, and is, no "science" on the masking. There was, and is, no "science" on "social distancing." Fauci says one thing in public, and another under oath. Does that bother you? Does that make you believe he might be untrustworthy? Why not? (Other than being a partisan Dem hack?)
        How about the laptop? Gee, 51 "experts" said all the hallmarks of Russian disinfo. The real disinfo was the "experts" who all still have security clearances, AND the FBI knew the laptop was real in 2019.
        J6 and the failure to have the National Guard at the ready…on Nancy Pelosi. The illegal J6 Committee? Destruction of evidence? Shall I go on?
        Every contretemps I have had with you, and your blind, undying love for Big Brother, I have been right and you have been wrong.
        No one said anything about other, real, vaccines. (The real definition, not the political one made up to justify forcing an EXPERIMENTAL JABJABJAB on people without informed, willing consent in violation of the Nuremberg Code) However, based on those lies, can you understand why people might have distrust? Particulalry blacks with the Tuskegee experimentation. Of course, "Doctor" Fauci also sorta experimented on gays back in the day with the hyped paranoia spread about AIDS and his refusal to use (I think) Bactrim or some other readily available drug early that would have saved many lives. Kinda like the protocol that denied the efficacy of IVM and HCQ used at first signs of the ChineseLabBatFlu to promote an ineffective, experimental "vaccine"…and then the good docs at the NIH (230 of them) got $690 million in royalties from BigPharma. No problem with that? Still love Big Brother?

      2. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        Larry – you are always wrong. The only willful ignorance on steroids "in my view" is your eternal, unquestioning love of Big Brother. Even when shown facts, repeatedly, you refuse to acknowledge them. There was, and is, no "science" on the masking. There was, and is, no "science" on "social distancing." Fauci says one thing in public, and another under oath. Does that bother you? Does that make you believe he might be untrustworthy? Why not? (Other than being a partisan Dem hack?)
        How about the laptop? Gee, 51 "experts" said all the hallmarks of Russian disinfo. The real disinfo was the "experts" who all still have security clearances, AND the FBI knew the laptop was real in 2019.
        J6 and the failure to have the National Guard at the ready…on Nancy Pelosi. The illegal J6 Committee? Destruction of evidence? Shall I go on?
        Every contretemps I have had with you, and your blind, undying love for Big Brother, I have been right and you have been wrong.
        No one said anything about other, real, vaccines. (The real definition, not the political one made up to justify forcing an EXPERIMENTAL JABJABJAB on people without informed, willing consent in violation of the Nuremberg Code) However, based on those lies, can you understand why people might have distrust? Particulalry blacks with the Tuskegee experimentation. Of course, "Doctor" Fauci also sorta experimented on gays back in the day with the hyped paranoia spread about AIDS and his refusal to use (I think) Bactrim or some other readily available drug early that would have saved many lives. Kinda like the protocol that denied the efficacy of IVM and HCQ used at first signs of the ChineseLabBatFlu to promote an ineffective, experimental "vaccine"…and then the good docs at the NIH (230 of them) got $690 million in royalties from BigPharma. No problem with that? Still love Big Brother?

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          No love of big brother. Just some realistic assessments of how much any govt agency can accomplish in a very short amount of time, dealing with a new disease, they know little about.

          There IS a great deal of science on other masks used by doctors who treat highly contagious disease like Ebola or with other bio-hazards… you can buy masks and entire suits that are certified to be effective. But they did not appear overnight. It took years to develop them and they cost thousands – something we did not have at the beginning of Covid.

          1. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Yet again, proving my point. Fauci KNEW they did not work at the start. He has emails saying that. How much damage was done to the economy of the US and world by the evil people who would do anything to get rid of Trump? Why was he funding gain of function research, and lying about it?
            How much capability of children was lost with the unnecessary school closures and masking?
            He had NO SCIENCE on “social distancing.”
            Why did he deny herd immunity? Covid is not Ebola. Nor is it anthrax. Biohazards are real and require caution. Covid was an evilly manufactured disease by government megalomaniacs which they lied about – its origins, its treatment, its dangerousness, etc. It was a respiratory disease. A manipulated virus, but still a virus. And please just ignore $690 million to 230 “scientists” in Fauci’s world – seems like a conflict of interest to me, and destroys the noble government servant BS.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Fauci knew they did not have time to do the research needed to get definitive answers. He along did not do any of the restrictive measures that were done – around the world. He was one guy who has been personally threatened with physical violence . He denied herd immunity , again, because he did not have enough information to make a definitive decision. He did not fund gain of function and certainly not as one guy. Such a decision would require a number of people to approve.

            Children around the world were affected by covid. Again, not one person.

            Most of what you are saying is in my mind, conspiracy theories and assertions that have no basis in fact or reality. The rest of the world scientists had the same issues… and to characterize their efforts as “evil” is truly myopic in my opinion.

          3. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            You are impervious to the truth, facts, reason.
            And you do unequivocally, absolutely, positively love Big Brother with an unrivalled passion, like the fan girls for Fabio on the romance novels.

          4. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            When anyone with a shred of reason looks at the entirety of Fauci’s Career as well as the history of NIH and the CDC with regard to infectious diseases from measles, to polio to HIV and Aids, and dozens of other deadly diseases, etc… they know these folks have done right by us. They’re not perfect and have made mistakes but on the whole we benefit greatly from them and without them we’d be like so many 3rd world countries where disease runs rampant and people die by the millions.

          5. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Like I said…
            A love so deep, so pure…
            Why were “gays” mad at him back in the day?
            $690 miilion in royalties from BigPharma.
            Keep digging…

          6. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            full story on the gays… at the end they loved him?

            Did Fauci dictate COVID response worldwide? Nope.

          7. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            https://tomklingenstein.com/fauci-was-just-a-symptom/

          8. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Anthony_Fauci

          9. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Walter, if it could be shown that Fauci and company did something fundamentally different in this country compared to other countries – and wrong compared to what they did, there might be some substance. Can you point to out countries that did COVID different and better? There are 7 billion or so on earth and we are what 350 million?

          10. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            You, as usual, are arguing consensus. That is not an argument. The globalist experts, from the West, were all wrong. Why was I, not a science jock, right? There is no excuse for “the experts” to have been so wrong other than they live in a bubble, and are corrupt, and are not qualified for the jobs they hold. Fauci has no right based on merit to be doling out billions of research dollars. And then factor in the corruption of $690 million in Big Pharma royalties. He lied. They lied. They knew they were lying. Not they “misstated” – lied. why? Cover up? Money? Political? All of the above? How many died because of their protocol, that was wrong in every way? (Ignoring the people who died because they manipulated the virus…and lied about it). How many more need to die from the still not fully known complications from the mandated violation of the Nuremberg Code? You can make all of the Big Brother loving excuses you want, but this was a massive crime against humanity.

          11. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Well no, not consensus. How other countries choose to deal with an issue, different from us. It happens. The targeting of one guy – Fauci and ignoring how the rest of the world acted is holding him personally responsible for something he was not solely responsible for in the first place. All the people who died in the world are not because of Fauci. Fauci might have lied or gotten money from big Pharma but COVID was bigger than him and his colleagues and other scientists in their role -around the world. What seems to be coming across was that it actually was a worldwide conspiracy that they were all acting together to lie and mislead people around the world. That all the world scientists acting in concert together were responsible for bungling COVID. Correct?

          12. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Nice attempt at diversion, again, as usual. All the “elites” think alike. Globalist power crazed nothings, who do not deserve the power they wield. Did Fauci do a good job? No. Did Fauci lie. Yes. Did Fauci surreptisiously fund gain of function that created the virus? Yes. Did he lie about it? Yes. Did he lie about masking ? Yes. Did he have any science for social distancing? No. So he made it up? Yes. Did Fauci and others like Collins suppress therapeutics commonly available, including using the govt to censor opinions that turned out to be “true”? Yes. Did Fauci have a conflict of interest seeking only a BigPharma solution when scientists in his dept would recieve $690 million in royalties from BigPharma? Yes. Was it potentially a conflict of interest his wife headed the medical ethics part of NIH and turned a blind eye to mandating experimental medical products in violation of the Nuremberg Code? Yes. Even though there is plenty more, I think that’s enough. Quit defending the indefensible. Now try being fair to Donald Trump and everybody you disagree with politically – if you cut them 1/100th of the slack you cut Fauci, you would be unable to blather your always wrong opinions here.

          13. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            “globalist power” and Fauci was leader of it? “lied”, “suppressed”, “censored”, “gain of function”, etc, etc and “plenty more”? Wow! Pretty much one guy who messed up COVID round the world! I would be really hard
            to cut him some slack especially since Trump appointed him also, right?

          14. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Is the US the lead country in the world? So, yes, Fauci had the pre-eminent spot.
            Now, let’s get back to reality – HE IS A LIAR. Why are you defending A LIAR? Repeatedly. And Trump appointed him because he naively believed he might be a true “public servant.” He wasn’t. Which is why all the “Normies” want to dismantle the administrative state.

          15. Drive-by Commentator Avatar
            Drive-by Commentator

            Give it up, Larry.

            Presenting facts and reason to some people is akin to showing a wristwatch to a pig and asking him for the time of day.

          16. CJBova Avatar
            CJBova

            If you read this pubmed article, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10234839/
            you will see the likelihood of GOF activity involved in COVID-19 is far from a wild conspiracy theory given the previous activities with American and Chinese scientists. Fauci did not tell the truth; he used cover stories to convince the public to accept what he said,knowing he did not have scientific evidence for his claims. Who said he was the only one to approve the GOF work? Of course it involved more than one person-he was just the front man for it,

          17. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Lots of people involved in the issue besides Fauci, long before him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain-of-function_research The focus on one man and the associated conspiracy theories, plus personal violent threats on him and his family tells me all I need to know.

          18. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            re: ” Biohazards are real and require caution. Covid was an evilly manufactured disease by government megalomaniacs which they lied about – its origins, its treatment, its dangerousness, etc. It was a respiratory disease. A manipulated virus, but still a virus. And please just ignore $690 million to 230 “scientists” in Fauci’s world – seems like a conflict of interest to me, and destroys the noble government servant BS.”

            This was an evil worldwide conspiracy involving Fauci and other scientists around the world?

          19. CJBova Avatar
            CJBova

            Don’t kid yourself. They knew a lot based on the 2002-2017 work, and simple masks could not prevent viral transmissiion.

          20. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            It was a new disease that they really did not know enough about to generate good recommendations and even if they did, manufacturers were unable to ramp up quick enough. I’m sure you remember the shortages of things like alcohol and bleach and more.

            There are dozens, hundreds of certified biohazard suits and masks that very much DO exist that WERE developed based on evidence and data…. it’s not like there was no way to do it. It takes time to do it and there was not time enough in COVID case.

      3. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        So when you talk about "evidence" with regard to covid and measures, think about other diseases like Ebola and whether or not there are masks or body suits that will protect you and they have been tested and certified – i.e. there is "evidence" to show they are effective.

        You can look at workplace masks and suits – like those used for asbestos removal and again ask if they are certified as effective for that use and again, what "evidence" is there that they are (or are not)?

        The issue is that it can take years for something like that to be certified and they did not have that luxury with COVID. It was a new disease they knew little about and they knew they could not recommend masks that cost a lot of dollars and even then not enough of them and little chance of ramping of production to supply them,

        So the CDC gave their best advice based on what they did know and admitedly not enough.

        It's not like there is no evidence and no way to certify devices that protect against harmful threats. They do, all the time, but you have to know the disease and you have to know what is effective and those things take take they did not have.

        That's what Fauci really meant and in my view, said badly and was castigated by folks who simply do not understand what is involved in certifying something.

        1. CJBova Avatar
          CJBova

          You don’t pretend to know if you don’t have the evidence. The N-95 masks were better than cloth and around for a long time.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            and no way to get enough of them manufactured in time early on. They simply were not available in the numbers needed once they decided they were “enough”. Again, this was WORLDWIDE. We didn’t even
            have manufacturers in this country for some stuff.

  5. John Harvie Avatar
    John Harvie

    Should have been "Shrank", not "Shrunk". Yep, picky since my mom was a grammar teacher at Binford Jr High.

  6. Clarity77 Avatar
    Clarity77

    The left at work once again. Amusing in this case when they destroy their own propaganda tool. The predictable consequence of lying.

  7. pak152 Avatar
    pak152

    The Wall Street Journal has never printed on Sunday nor holidays when the markets are closed

  8. Drive-by Commentator Avatar
    Drive-by Commentator

    I just cancelled my subscription to the digital edition because:
    1. 5 out of 6 front page articles are local sports
    2. News and commentary is hard to find
    3. The digital edition features row after row of "historic photos" of Richmond that add nothing to the publication but do a fine job of junking up the place.

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