Social Media Goes Mainstream While Newspaper Circulation Plummets

Several headlines I came across this morning are illustrative of what I perceive as a long-term trend in the media landscape. As technology improves and new mediums for sharing information come about, news audiences will continue to fragment. This was evident in the 1980s and 90s with the explosion in popularity of cable television networks. Early in this decade, blogs took center stage as the new platform competing with the traditional press for inquiring eyeballs. In 2008, most of the attention is going to social media. Here are a few of the headlines I saw this morning:

Twitter Goes Mainstream: A lot more people — and businesses — are finding new ways to tweet

Reddit goes ‘Independent,’ says more deals to come

Putting Facebook and Twitter to work

Most Major Papers Continue Circ Decline

Here are the new circulation numbers for the top 25 daily papers in the United States:

USA TODAY — 2,293,310 — 0.01%
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — 2,011,999 — 0.01%
NEW YORK TIMES — 1,000,665 — (-3.58%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES — 739,147 — (-5.20%)
DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK — 632,595 — (-7.16%)

NEW YORK POST — 625,421 — (-6.25%)
THE WASHINGTON POST — 622,714 — (-1.94%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — 516,032 — (-7.75%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE — 448,271 — (-11.66%)
NEWSDAY — 377,517 — (-2.58%)

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — 361,333 — (-5.51%)
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — 339,430 — (-7.07%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS — 338,933 — (-9.28%)
BOSTON GLOBE — 323,983 — (-10.18%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS — 322,360 — (-4.26%)

STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK, N.J. — 316,280 — (-10.40%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES — 313,176 — (-3.94%)
PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND — 305,529 — (-8.58%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — 300,674 — (-11.06%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS — 298,243 — (-6.84%)

THE OREGONIAN — 283,321 — (-8.45%)
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION — 274,999 — (-13.62%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE — 269,819 — (-3.00%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES — 268,935 — (-6.88%)
THE SACRAMENTO BEE — 253,249 — (-4.22%)

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