George Rebane

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recently told a Washington audience that by 2018 the Washington Post (and presumably other newspapers) would survive only in their online editions. Subscribers are dropping the pulp versions of the newspaper at record rates and many are abandoning professional journalists’ versions of the news altogether. Newspapers are seeking to divert their readers’ attention to this development by switching from publishing the traditional circulation figures to giving out something called “reach”. This new circulation metric is supposed to be the sum of the old print circulation plus the number of daily unique visitors to the newspaper’s website. It is not yet clear that the advertisers will accept this apples and oranges comparison because the online perusal experience is markedly different from that of the traditional page turning session.  In any event, if this prognostication holds for the nation’s flagship newspapers, what can we surmise will be the fate of the more marginally budgeted and staffed small town news outlets like our own Union?