Daily News Shrinks

The New York Daily News has never been a great newspaper, but it used to be an adequate one.  In recent years, it has fallen on hard times.  Its circulation has shrunk, the size of the paper has shrunk, and the staff has been shrinking for years.  Today, the paper laid off half of its remaining editorial staff.  That means that the Daily Snooze (as the other NY tabloid, the Post calls it) will have less than 50 employee to write and edit the entire paper.  That will give it enough staff to cover some things poorly and some things not at all.  You have to wonder why the owner is even bothering to try to make it with a tiny staff that will never produce a great newspaper.  The News will close sometime in the near future; that is my prediction.

A few decades ago, the NY Post almost went under as well.  It ended up under the ownership of some rather strange people and things just got worse and worse.  Then News Corp. bought it and it became a favorite of the chairman, Rupert Murdoch.  He devoted substantial resources to bringing back the paper and restoring its quality.  Of course, the "quality" of the NY Post is of a very different type than that of the NY Times.  The Post is a paper that promotes gossip, sports and pithy news.  The Times drones on in long left-wing think pieces.

I guess the Daily News could keep going, but it will take an owner who really doesn't care about making money in the short term.  I don't think they are going to find such an entity.