The End of the Newspaper—and the Beginning of Publishing

I’ve been a newspaper junkie since I was a kid. I used to go to the local library in our town of 45,000 to connect with cities around the world through their newspapers.

I became fond of San Francisco—maybe that’s why I went to law school out there—in part by the sporting green section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

After mopping floors in the dining hall at Notre Dame in the evenings, I’d pick up a free copy of the Chicago Tribune from the stack of left overs. I became a fan of the city and its sports’ teams, and became Tribune subscriber when I was living and working as a lawyer in Wisconsin. Beat the local paper to the doorstep in the morning, and it was more current.

Newspapers brought us the world.

No longer. As reported by The New York Times’ Mark Walker, the family-owned Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will cease publication on Sunday, May 3. A newspaper, I always knew the name of, is “signaling the end of a newspaper whose origins date to 1786.”

The financial pressures were too much The Block family company owning the paper said it had lost more than $350 million over the past 20 years while publishing the newspaper. The financial pressures facing local journalism had made “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”

As sad as this seems, the closing of newspapers and other publications represent an opportunity for people who have something to share with the public and who care enough to do so.

Look at the law. When I headed back to New York City in the 90’s to meet with the CEO of ALM about my thoughts on digital publishing, I believe there were about 30 periodicals being publishing by ALM serving cities, states and niches. I don’t believe there are half that number today.

There were no blogs and other digital publishing from lawyers and law firms. Today there’s over 70,000 lawyer publishers and 4,500 digital publications.

Not newspapers, but caring lawyers and other professionals who offer even more to their communities via their own publications and contributions on social media.

Won’t be long, if it’s not already the case, that young people entering law school, will wonder what anyone saw in newspapers. They’ll look at publishing as something we each do—if we care enough.