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News Flash: Newspaper Circulation Skyrockets! . . . . for a day
From Boston to LA, there was a run on Election Day ’08 newspapers Wednesday as Americans bought up copies trumpeting Barack Obama’s victory as a piece of history. Copies of the New York Times reportedly sold on Ebay for $299.99 and $400, and the Washington Post printed 350,000 extra copies, selling them for $1.50—three times the usual cover price. Countering widespread continuing declines in circulation and revenues, newspapers nationwide printed tens of thousands of extra copies to keep up with demand, as customers seeking historical keepsakes lined up at newsstands and waited for trucks to deliver new press runs.
• Julia Wallace, editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I think what this really says, at a huge moment in history, is that people want something to keep and to remember. A newspaper has a very historic, commemorative feel to it. More than anything, it’s about having this to pass on to their children and grandchildren.”
• Steve Hills, president and general manager of Washington Post Media: “I think there is an authority and finality, a sort of last word that comes from the printed edition of the newspaper.”
• NYTimes Editorial Board: “That long, patient line of New Yorkers was a little flame of comfort to warm a newspaper person’s troubled heart. People like to say that print is a withering industry, that newspapers are shrinking ice floes in a warming sea of pixels. But for crying out loud, when something big happens, don’t you miss the paper?”
LINKS: LATimes, NYTimesJay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Let's not kid ourselves. Selling out our pre-election editions would be exciting because it would mean people wanted to read us. The post-election boom means that those people regard newspapers as souvenirs instead of information sources.
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