links for 2009-04-12

"The changing way many people get their news, combined with tough economic times, has made it hard for almost all papers… And according to some projections, that trend is not likely to change anytime soon, with the Internet still savaging the media business model and the economy in the midst of a historic slump.

Perhaps this scenario could have been avoided under different management, but most likely not, said Mulvoy, who retired in 2000 after 35 years at the Globe. People at the paper saw much of this coming, he said; they just weren't sure how to stop it. … Mulvoy himself led meetings, he said, talking about the Internet and how to defray the blow it might deliver to the newspaper. "But nobody had any answers then," he said. "And nobody has any answers now.""

"With four major newspaper companies seeking bankruptcy protection in recent months, much attention has been focused on the dire straits that daily papers find themselves in. But weeklies are having a difficult time, too. The wilting economy and falling advertising revenue are forcing some of Boston's weekly papers to scale back dramatically."

"The newspaper business was a victim of its enormous success," Mutter said. "Because their revenues continued to grow up to 2005, about 10 years after most people heard about the Internet, they put very little effort and energy into trying to imagine how the world might change and what their position would be in a changed world."