As Media Layoffs Grow, Industry Pleads For Urgent Relief

Even with spikes in digital readers, advertising has taken a hit from slumping business conditions, and from marketers’ reluctance to place ads alongside news of the crisis, the analyst said.

Doctor said the news organizations which have been relying more on subscriber revenue, such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, may weather the crisis better.

But he sees an increase in “ghost newspapers” which have been bought by investors and still make money “but have little or no local content” due to newsroom cuts, Doctor added.

– Relief on the way? –

Some modest relief efforts are underway. Facebook said it was committing $100 million to help news organizations confront the crisis including with some “emergency” grants.

The National Geographic Society launched an emergency fund for journalists all over the world covering COVID-19 within their own communities, with grants of between $1,000 and $8,000.

Some hard-hit outlets like free weeklies have shut down in print or been asking readers for contributions, while the Chicago Reader issued a coloring book to raise funds.

The NewsGuild, which represents about 25,000 journalists at 200 outlets, called Wednesday for a public fund to support newsrooms and media workers to prevent layoffs, along with tax credits and deductions for news subscriptions.

“The industry was already suffering and entered this crisis without enough workers to cover this story,” the union’s president Jon Schleuss said in a message to members. “Now, we’re facing a possible extinction.”

The question of federal government aid is politically awkward for the media, and comes amid longstanding distrust of journalism outlets and attacks on media by President Donald Trump.

Some outlets may be able to obtain tax credits or other relief from the $2 trillion economic relief package approved by Congress, yet many in the industry say this may not avert a further erosion of the media.

The media advocacy group Free Press said a journalism stimulus plan should include “direct, emergency subsidies” for newsrooms and tax credits.

Others have called for the government to spend $500 million on public service ads about the health crisis to aid media.

Duke University public policy professor Philip Napoli said the crisis may help awaken the public to the importance of news media.

“News is what economists call a public good, a type of product for which it is particularly challenging for the market to capture its full value,” Napoli said in a Wired editorial.

“The price we pay for news and the price advertisers pay to reach news consumers doesn’t reflect the news’ full economic value.”

Story cited here.

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