May 19, 2024
In five languages (English, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian) and two U.S. printing, “Newsonomics: Twelve Trends That Will Shape the News You Get” is the first Ken Doctor book. Sign up here for notice of the new Newsonomics Readers.
By JOSHUA BENTON AND KEN DOCTOR Circa 2012, one of the most popular lines among American newspaper journalists went something like this: “Newspapers can’t be that terrible of a business if Warren Buffett, the smartest investor in the world, wants in.” That was the year that Buffett’s Berkshire ...
Read MoreIt is the best of times for The New York Times — and likely the worst of times for all the local newspapers with Times (or Gazette or Sun or Telegram or Journal) in their nameplates across the land. When I spoke at state newspaper conferences five or ten years ago, people would say: “It’ll... ...
Read MoreWhenever the definitive history of daily newspapering is written, 2019 will be recorded as a major turning point. Today, one year-long drama comes to a close, or at least an act break: New Gannett, the result of America’s two largest newspaper companies merging, will become a reality as the ...
Read MoreYou think $300 million in costs cut is a big number? Try $400 million. Or more than $400 million. Those are the internal numbers in the air as America’s two largest newspaper chains, Gannett and GateHouse, try to land their megamerger, first announced in August. Follow the money: When I ...
Read MoreThere’s the megamerger, and then there are the numbers: $1.8 billion, 11.5 percent interest, 5 years, $300 million, 18 percent…and many more. RELATED ARTICLE Newsonomics: The GateHouse/Gannett newspaper megamerger could be announced as soon as Monday morning August 4, 2019 ...
Read MoreEditor’s note: Gannett and GateHouse officially announced the merger Monday afternoon. Here’s the company announcement, confirming that the company will be called Gannett, be based at Gannett’s headquarters, and retain GateHouse’s New Media Investment Group CEO Mike Reed. Barring ...
Read MoreWhat do you call a daily newspaper that’s no longer a daily newspaper? “Sunday + Digital” sounds far less poetic. That’s now more than an academic question. Many publishers — if not most — are now seriously modeling and planning for the transformation of their businesses from seven-day ...
Read MoreThe deal isn’t yet finished. But I’m told by multiple sources that there are no major stumbling blocks left to negotiate in a megamerger between the United States’ two largest daily newspaper chains — Gannett and GateHouse. It’s increasingly likely to happen, with an announcement by summer’s ...
Read MoreCall it megaclustering. If a GateHouse/Gannett merger — rumored for weeks, today reported as a deal in some stage of progress by The Wall Street Journal — becomes reality, about 1 of every 6 daily newspapers in the United States would be owned by a single company. Totaled up, 267 dailies would ...
Read More“People think nothing is happening, but that’s the farthest thing from the truth. Everybody is talking to everybody.” That’s the best quick summation I can offer of the first few months of what I called 2019 Consolidation Games back in January. That line, offered last week by one newspaper ...
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