by: David Zeeck
thenewstribune.com

On Tuesday night I was watching the “NBC Nightly News” with Brian Williams when he talked about the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor getting out of the daily newspaper business and converting to a Web-only product.

He went on to say: “In plain English, the Internet and changing reader habits are killing the old newspaper business. Circulation is declining almost 1 percent every passing month.”

Aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!

I think Brian Williams is a terrific newsman: smart, precise, personable, fair. But in this case he was relying on conventional wisdom that, while broadly shared, is bunk. He also got at least one fact wrong.
Newspapers are struggling in this recession. Isn’t every American business? And we do have the challenge of the Internet, though we’re profiting from it more than we’re hurt by it. But the newspaper business isn’t being killed. And it’s not dying. And circulation isn’t declining at 1 percent a month (or 12 percent a year).

Let’s compare newspapers to a competitor to see who’s doing well and who’s not, relatively speaking. Let’s pick, oh, television for instance. ... READ FULL STORY