newspapers and journalism

apparently someone in our office reads business in vancouver, as it came in the mail with a magazine of lists. there are lists for everything imaginable, but the one that caught my eye was for biggest newspapers in the vancouver area. they listed the top 20 vancouver area newspapers (by circulation), and here are the highlights with a few notes below.

newspaper	circulation	paid/free	# employees
vancouver sun	203,101 (daily avg)	paid	1,000 (pacific newspaper group inc.)
province	167,565 (daily avg)	paid	1,000 (pacific newspaper group inc.)
vancouver courier	132,650	free	41
georgia straight	120,000	free	60
now newspaper	110,000	free	40
surrey/north delta leader	82,300	free	np (40 last year)
north shore news	64,255	free	79
newsleader	61,863	free	15
the now	52,500	free	np (last year 25)
tri-city news	52,296	free	65
north shore outlook	50,279	free	np
burnaby now	49,000	free	26 last year
westender	46,250	free	17
globe and mail	48,245 (m-f) 68,763 (sat)	paid	30
richmond news	46,137	free	16
national post	45,923 (m-f) 46,611 (sat)	paid	7
richmond review	45,500	free	32
abbotsford news	44,223	free	125 fte
abbotsford times	42,175	free	26
advance news	38,750	free	20

and now for some basic observation:

• of the 20 papers listed, only 4 have paying readers


• 11 of the papers are owned by canwest global communications corp.


• 7 of the papers are owned by black press


• the 2 remaining papers owned by vancouver free press corp. and bellglobe media


• 6 of the papers have less employees than they did last year, 3 have more, and the rest were the same or didn't report


• the national post dropped 6 positions from last year, while the globe and mail dropped 5. the paper rankings are based on circulation, so it appears canadians are reading the 'national' papers less. my guess is that they go online for this info. or they get enough canwest reprint in the local rags so they don't bother with a national.


• there are probably many other observations the acute could draw, but i am not on the ball this morning.

my conclusion is that i would never, ever get into journalism. i've met a few journalists and none of them seem very happy. the newspaper business has too many power games, too few resources, and too much frustration.

and the jschools keep pumping these poor kids out at a steady clip.

journalism is a profession that has many similarities to the tech industry. tim bray posted some interesting comments lately, and i think there are strong parallels.

{August 27, 2003 10:22 AM}