Any Newspapers Around Here?
More exceptional statistics for Vermont, though not the kind one wants.
As you may have heard, fewer people are buying and reading newspapers all over America. As you may not have heard, the fewerness in Vermont exceeds the national average, which was about 10.8 percent in the third quarter.
A few Vermont papers did better. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (that’s the outfit that does the counting) circulation was down “only” six percent at the Bennington Banner. But daily circulation at the Brattleboro Reformer, and the Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus dropped by more than ten percent, and on weekdays, the Rutland Herald circulation was down 12.5 percent.
Sunday circulation at the T-A and the Herald, both owned by the same company, was down somewhat less. Still, nothing went up.
But then, nothing went down like the state’s biggest paper. Weekday circulation at the Burlington Free Press dropped a whopping 14 percent, to 33,489 copies. At the Freep, too, the Sunday decline was somewhat smaller, down “only 9.7 percent, to 42,180.
Let us be charitable. These results do not prove that the newspapers are not doing their job. To begin with, many readers now choose to get their news on the Internet, but they do it on the newspaper web site. So in theory, the Freep and the other papers could be reaching as many readers, but on pixel instead of newsprint.
But that’s true all around the country. Vermont circulation was still down by more than the national average. (Though some papers did worse; circulation at the New York Post, a journal some of us would pay a daily fee not to read, has plunged almost 30 percent in the last 30 months).
Then, too, circulation went down partly because the price went up, to a dollar for the Rutland and Montpelier papers, to 75 cents in Burlington. Basic economics: the higher the price, the lower the demand.
Especially if, as the price goes up, the quality goes down, a description which, alas, fits.
Meaning there is opportunity to get that circulation back up again, and toward that end, the News Guy herewith offers a daring suggestion to Vermont’s general circulation newspapers. Considering the tenor of the times, this suggestion might seem bizarre, beyond the comprehension of today’s editors.
But with that warning…here goes!
You might try to…uhhh…well, let’s just come out with it—COVER THE NEWS.
Which was decidedly not done last Saturday when four of the five Democratic candidates for governor (and an articulate representative of the fifth) spoke to a bunch of environmentalists in Randolph.
In other words, they held a major political event, and nobody showed up.
Well, among daily newspapers, nobody but (assuming the News Guy’s Internet search was adequate) the Valley News, published in Lebanon, N.H., but covering Vermont that day better than any paper published in Vermont.
Shay Totten was there for Seven Days and so was Anne Galloway for her new vtdigger web site (and thanks to the folks at Green Mountain Daily for alerting the News Guy to her contribution). Want to know what the candidates said? Vtdigger has some YouTube from the event.
No, the News Guy was not there, partly because he assumed the event would be widely covered, and one purpose of this site is to cover what others do not. Who woulda thunk this event would fall into that category?
Continuing to be charitable, an editor might have thought: It’s Saturday. My good reporters don’t want to spend part of the weekend working. If I send one I have to give him/her a compensatory day off when I might need him/her more. Beside, we all know what Democrats are going to say to enviros; they’re gonna pander to them.
As they seem to have done. Still, no excuse. Four candidates for governor in one room on one day with a bunch of activists is news, dammit. Cover it.
You never know: folks might decide to start buying your paper again, over-priced though it may be.
