Commentator and media critic Jack Lessenberry writes on the Michigan Radio website that he just received the newest audited circulation figures for the Detroit Free Press and News. "They are horrifying," he writes.
The Detroit Free Press has gone from an average of more than 600,000 paid subscribers a day in the mid-1990s -- before the newspaper strike -- to less than 200,000 who pay for either the print or electronic versions of the newspaper, Lessenberry writes.
Things are even worse at The Detroit News. There, average print and electronic daily sales of the newspaper are now less than 100,000 copies a day.
Fewer than 64,000 people actually buy the printed newspaper – only one tenth of the number that did three decades ago, when Michigan’s population was smaller.
Lessenberry has a larger point: Newspapers still produce most of the content people read on line.
Somehow, we have to find a way to pay for and deliver the journalism we need to be an informed society.
