[lbo-talk] Circulation Plunges at Major US Newspapers

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 11/1/06, tfast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
> Agreed but the online readership is increasing.  So I don't think it is
> content issue per se.  I do think that is why it should be started as an
> ezine or online paper first andf then only later worry about a print ed.  If
> we were clever we would get some good content from Mexico and Canada
> and
> bill our paper as the first North American weekly.  Even Carrol could get
> behind that sense of internationalism no?  Or do we have to take on our
> bougeoisie first?

I'd love to have a daily online North American newspaper on the Left.

The question is not circulation per se but _paid_ circulation that
makes it possible to pay for reporters, editors, designers,
proofreaders, and so on, which even online left-wing newspapers need
if they are to rival the depth and breadth, quality and quantity, of
the best bourgeois newspapers, rather than to put out just another
collection of opinions (of which there is no shortage).

The Net is a great medium for circulating information, but it, due to
its ability to negate private property by infinite reproducibility, is
a poor medium for making money*, which is what for-profit newspapers
are finding out today.

An online North American weekly is conceivably doable, but it will be
still difficult to make people pay for professional work.

*  Except perhaps for porn and gambling.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>