Will Philadelphia be the place where the American newspaper dies? | Media | The Observer

Description

The visitor arriving in Philadelphia by train will see a city that seems to have everything. The train winds past rich suburbs, then scarred inner-city neighbourhoods of slums and burnt-out homes. Finally, it crosses a river lined with the boathouses of college rowing teams and the famous Museum of Art, perched on a bluff, which boasts the "Rocky Steps" where the legendary cinematic boxer trained. The traveller emerges into a grand marble station and out into a modern, bustling metropolis of 5.8 million people, the fifth-largest in the United States. Philadelphia has all modern America can offer, for better or worse: wealth, crime, politics, sports, art and culture. But what it might not have soon is a newspaper.

It is running in a race no one wants to win: which major US city will be the first to lose all its daily papers? Los Angeles, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, Denver and Newark are just a few of the other reluctant participants. The impact of losing all newspapers in these cities is potentially profound; many fear it would be a blow to American democracy. They worry that the watchdog role the press has played will be removed. The bedrock on which much of civic society has been built since colonial times will start to crumble. Yet one of these cities could lose all print news within a year.

You can choose metaphors to illustrate how technologically outdated newspapers have become in a media landscape dominated by blogs and the internet. They are vinyl records in an iPod world; videotapes in the era of DVDs and Hulu; typewriters in the face of the laptop. They are an old technology no one wants, needs or, increasingly, seems to care for. Certainly not in Philadelphia, where both the Inquirer and the Daily ...

Original URL

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/24/us-press-publishing-newspapers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/24/us-press-publishing-newspapers