Economic News

The Talking-Rings Took Over

by

(From The Time Machine, 1960)

Article in The Washington Post by George Will. 10/17/25

Headline: “What killed print media — and what died with it”

“The waning of newsprint is about cultural changes more momentous than digital publishing’s arrival.”

“. . .Mir [a Canadian media ecologist] says ‘the last newspaper generation’ was born in the early 1980s. It came of age as the internet did. Soon journalism stopped being about informing people to make them citizens, and began to be about making them agitated.

“The new business model depends on polarization, amplifying readers’ irritations and frustrations. ‘A newspaper,’ wrote Vladimir Lenin, ‘is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organiser.’

“ ‘Americans,’ Mir says, ‘consume media 12 hours per day. . .”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/17/trump-internet-news-media-newspapers/

Bag of Cash? – Nothing Wrong Here

by


Article in The New Republic by Malcolm Ferguson, 10/14/25

Headline:  “Trump Lashes Out at ABC Reporter After Disastrous Vance Interview”

Subhead:  “Donald Trump refused to take a question from an ABC reporter in his meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei.”

“President Trump refused to answer a question from an ABC reporter at his sitdown with Argentine President Javier Milei on Tuesday, citing host George Stephanopoulos’s embarrassment of Vice President JD Vance on Sunday. . .”

“Stephanopoulos didn’t “do” anything to Vance—he simply called him out on his B.S. regarding the $50,000 cash bribe the FBI caught current White House border czar Tom Homan accepting in a sting operation in 2024. Vance and the Trump administration continue to state that Homan committed no crime while being unable to say where the $50,000 went. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/post/201760/trump-refuses-answer-abc-reporter-jd-vance-interview

Newspaper Subscriber Woes

by


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Riddhi Setty, 10/14/25

Headline:  “Postal Service Delays Are Making the Already Tight Newspaper Business Even Harder”

Subhead:  “Subscribers report delays of as long as two months.”

“In late September, a man walked into the office of Jill Friesz, the owner of a newspaper publishing company in North Dakota, in a rage. ‘He was telling me he was tired of my excuses and that he may as well just quit subscribing to the paper,’ said Friesz, whose company, GS Publishing, operates seven weekly newspapers across the southwestern part of the state. . .”

“The problem, according to Friesz and a half dozen other newspaper publishers, editors, and trade association members who spoke to CJR, is significant delays by the US Postal Service, leading to weekly papers arriving at the homes of subscribers as late as nine weeks. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/postal-service-delays-newspapers.php

Media Fading Away?

by


Article in Axios by Sara Fisher, 10/7/25

Headline: “Job cuts in news stabilize while broader media industry struggles”

“News media job cuts are more tempered so far this year, despite a few outlier organizations hit by public funding cuts and looming layoffs tied to consolidation.

“Why it matters: 2024 was a particularly brutal year for the news industry, as outlets raced to cut positions in an attempt to offset a weak ad market and get ahead of business disruptions from artificial intelligence. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/07/news-media-job-losses

In the Shredder?

by


Article in Daily Beast by Janna Brancolini, 10/6/25

Headline:  “Murdoch Paper Shreds Trump’s ‘Self-Destructive’ Fiasco”

“Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal blasted President Donald Trump’s tariff policy as “self-destructive folly” in response to plans to bail out farmers whose markets the administration has destroyed.

“Trump is considering a $10 billion relief package for soybean farmers, who have seen their sales plummet, thanks to the president’s trade war with China, which has hit American soybeans with a 23-percent import tax. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/rupert-murdoch-paper-shreds-donald-trumps-self-destructive-tariff-fiasco/

 

Media Monopolies?

by


Article in The New York Times, 9/11/25

Headline: “Paramount Plans Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery”

Subhead: “Any deal would further reshape the media industry, putting CBS News, CNN and two major movie studios under the same corporate umbrella.”

“. . .A merger of the two Hollywood giants would reshape the media industry, putting some of the most renowned news and entertainment brands under the same roof. It would unite two of the biggest movie studios and two of the most influential news networks, CBS News and CNN. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/business/media/paramount-warner-bros-discovery-bid.html

First Newspapers, Now Local TV

by


Article in Poynter by Rick Edmonds, 9/2/25

Headline:  “Inescapable technology changes and a migrating audience have local broadcast news in trouble”

Subhead: “For years, local TV looked steady while newspapers flailed. Now the business model creaks, and the challenges feel uncomfortably familiar.”

“The scenario is familiar to any journalist who has worked at a newspaper in the last 15 years. The audience is moving away from the profitable old platform to a hot, new one. The outlet must adapt or at least try to. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/is-business-broadcast-journalism-in-trouble/

Did Media Panic?

by


Article in Mediaite by Ahmad Austin Jr., 8/28/25

Headline:  “CNBC Analyst Rips Media’s Trump Panic After Latest Jobs Report Turns Out Good: ‘Not Sending Any Smoke Signals’ “

“CNBC Analyst Rips Media’s Trump Panic After Latest Jobs Report Turns Out Good: ‘Not Sending Any Smoke Signals’ . . .”

“At the end of his report, Santelli noted how the drama surrounding President Donald Trump’s feud with the Federal Reserve — despite all the media attention — has had little impact on the economy itself. . .”

Read the ull article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/cnbc-analyst-rips-medias-trump-panic-after-latest-jobs-report-turns-out-good-not-sending-any-smoke-signals/

Newspapers Ghosting in Rural Areas

by

Article in The Guardian by Cy Neff, 8/22/25

Headline:   “Seven Wyoming newspapers were about to be shut. They were given a second life”

Subhead:  “A group of news execs stepped in to buy them, but across the US, 3,200 local news outlets have shuttered since 2005”

“Eight small towns across the vast rural state were reeling from the gut punch of the abrupt closures of their newspapers just a week earlier. Staff had woken up to an email from News Media Corporation (NMC) announcing the immediate closures of the printing presses. . .”

“The scene was not unique. According to the Local News Initiative, 3,200 local news outlets have vanished across the US since 2005. An estimated 55 million Americans do not have access to a local news source. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/22/wyoming-newspapers-nmc-bought

Keeping Public Media From Drowning?

by


Article in The Washington Post by Scott Nover, 8/19/25

Headline: “Foundations step in to offer $37 million lifeline to public media”

Subhead:  “The Knight, MacArthur and Ford foundations are among those pledging emergency funding after Trump’s rescission stripped federal funding from PBS and NPR stations.”

“Major philanthropic organizations said Tuesday that they are committing nearly $37 million in emergency funding to keep public media stations afloat after Congress passed President Donald Trump’s rescissions bill, which eliminated $1.1 billion in federal funding from PBS and NPR stations over the next two years. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/19/npr-pbs-foundations-funding/

– – – – –

Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Steve Waldman, 8/20/25

Headline:  “What Will the Next Era of Public Media Look Like?”

Subhead: “After the demise of CPB, the industry has an opportunity to build more creative models for public support.”

“. . .In response, Knight, MacArthur, and several other foundations announced this week that they were funding a Public Media Bridge Fund to fill the absence of CPB. About a hundred TV and radio stations were receiving more than 30 percent of their revenue from CPB; many of those would be in danger of going dark. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/what-will-the-next-era-of-cpb-public-media-look-like.php