By Colleen McVey
Another dark day for daily newspapers.
On Monday, Gannett (which owns USA Today and more than 80 daily newspapers), The Star-Ledger of Newark, and The Oregonian in Portland all told their employees they will have to take furloughs (unpaid leave) to save money.
Also on Monday, another paper announced it is stopping the presses. After 174 years, a Michigan daily is canceling its print edition. We heard the same sad story last week from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and last month from the 149 year old Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
The news on our newspapers gets more frightening by the day. If a paper isn't shutting down, it's laying off workers and cutting back operations. Soon, the Ann Arbor News plans to publish only two days a week--Thursdays and Sundays. The Flint Journal, The Bay City Times, and The Saginaw News will be publishing only three days a week--Thursday through Sunday.
Advertising dollars are down and competition from the internet is up. How can newspapers survive these changing and challenging times? Someone has got to find an answer. People who lose their daily paper lose an important choice on where they get their news. To be well-informed we need local newspapers plus TV and radio news. I am a news "junkie." I listen to all-news radio in my car and at home I flip between news programs all day, and I start my day reading my newspaper. I never want to lose that and I want the REAL thing--not the internet.