The Social and Economic Influence of Regional Newspapers in Troubled Times

The internet is contributing to the newspaper losing its readership, advertising revenue and it is changing how they report the news. Doom laden warnings for the industry and public service journalism are prevalent among leading newspaper industry academics (Meyer, 2008; Pincus, 2009). Beam et al. (2009) notes that: “society should care what is happening to newspapers as without them democracy will be diminished”. Meanwhile Byrne (2009, pp. 13-15) believes that the social influence and business model of newspapers is being threatened by the following trends: 1) An ever shrinking audience for many news products, which is accelerating the move towards conglomeration and convergene (with dire consequences for the diversity and plurality of local news. 2) Newspapers are cutting back on staff, and this is having a damaging consequence for serious news production (including the increased reliance on unchecked public relations briefs and a reduced coverage of important political, economic and social issues). 3) The increased trivialization (sensationalizing) of editorial content.