top-line research summaries

Print in the Mix:

Print in the Mix: A Clearinghouse of Research on Print Media Effectiveness brings together valuable information and research from a wide-range of credible sources on the role and effectiveness of print in the marketing media mix.

Covering all areas of print, including direct mail, magazines, custom publishing, newspapers, and more, Print in the Mix’s concise facts and top-line research summaries demonstrate print’s effectiveness and role in generating return on investment -- alone and working synergistically with other media to drive results.

Kathleen Parker on the enduring role of newspapers - washingtonpost.com

Kathleen Parker - Kathleen Parker on the enduring role of newspapers - washingtonpost.com

The good-news story
By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, November 1, 2009

Each time another report surfaces about the decline of newspapers, I feel like a death-row inmate counting the warden's footsteps.

The latest echo of doom arrived a few days ago: U.S. newspaper circulation dropped 10 percent from April through September, compared with the same period last year. The largest decrease recorded thus far, the decline was attributed to the usual -- advertising and readership lost to the Web. Industrywide, ad revenue, which constitutes newspapers' main source of income, is on track to drop $20 billion by 2010. Even so, most newspapers remain profitable, and circulation is astoundingly good, all things considered.

That's the delightful view of Alex Jones -- fourth-generation member of a newspaper-owning family, Pulitzer Prize-winning media critic and now author of "Losing the News." In his book, Jones, who also heads Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, manages to combine a dispassionate look at the news business with a page-turning story of traditional journalism's highs and lows.