This is National newspaper week; an occasion to look at the challenges the news business faces.

Pepper Parr, Publisher of the Burlington Gazette is writing a series of articles on the state of the industry. Pepper has been a judge of the COPAs and this series is also on the site at this link. This is the second of a series on the changes taking place in print media and the challenge keeping the public informed.

In the period leading up to 2000 media found itself facing realty difficult times. When Y2k (remember that event) was upon us no one really knew what was going to happen when we moved into the new millennium.

Newspapers were selling their printing presses and contracting the work out.

Media covered the event like a wet blanket – there were those that said it wasn’t really a problem while others suggested the machines that drive production would come to an immediate halt.

Media did a lot of reporting – but they didn’t pause to ask: what does this mean to us as an industry?

I don’t recall reading about any industry wide workshops; I don’t recall seeing anything in the way of op-ed pieces on what the industry needed to do in the way of changes.

Media covered disruption – without realizing that they were in line for some major disruption to their industry and they weren’t prepared.

The industry no longer had the aura of Watergate or the Pentagon Papers that made reporters heros – at that time thousands flooded into the industry wanting to be reporters. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the subject of close to fawning news stories, television specials and movies.

By the late 1980s journalism schools were being closed.  The number of students that graduated got smaller and smaller.

The age of the men and woman in the news rooms was made up of people in their late 40’s and 50’s  – there was no new blood coming into the industry.  And there were few MBAs on staff of the large newspapers.

Those that were public corporations had financial analysts looking at profits which were decent at the time – what those analysts didn’t see was that the boat was moving quickly toward a Niagara size waterfall.

When the disruption of the revenue sources began media didn’t have a Plan B – they watched is losses began to climb and subscriptions slowly slipped away.

 The data relates to American newspaper – the number will not be much different for Canada.