USA Today--What About Tomorrow?

Image via WikipediaCiting rumblings on the Gannett Blog, the Minnesota Post Web site today is reporting that media giant Gannett Company may be looking to unload its flagship national daily, USA Today, or spin the paper off as a separate entity.

Once the nation's largest circulation daily, USA Today's readership has plunged 20 percent over the past decade to 1.8 million readers, from 2.3 million.  Compounding the bad news is an equally precipitous drop in ad pages to 680 in the Fourth Quarter of 2010, compared to 1,045 ad pages during the Fourth Quarter in 2007.

The shrinking editorial staff and the diminished size of the daily have been chronicled by this blog over the past year. (See "TUOL" posts 11/16/10, 8/27/10, 6/24/10 and 2/12/10.)

7th Cir. to Hear Press Access to High School Sports Case Friday

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The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear arguments tomorrow in Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association & American HiFi, Inc. v. Gannett Co., Inc. & Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Inc. (Case No. 10-2627), involving whether the press has a First Amendment right of access to streaming Internet coverage of high school sports tournaments, according to a story in The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune.

The WIAA, which entered into exclusive contracts to stream high school sports tournaments over the Internet, sued in 2008 after The Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wisc. broadcast high school football playoffs using Internet streaming without WIAA permission (Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association & American HiFi, Inc. v. Gannett Co., Inc. & Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Inc., W.D. Wisc. Case No. 3:09-cv-00155-wmc).

U.S. District Court Judge William Conley sided with the plaintiffs last June in a 51-page ruling in which he said commerce, not freedom of the press, was the underlying issue of the case.  The news organizations appealed the ruling to the 7th Circuit.  The appellants contend they should be entitled to cover the Internet streamed games because they are school-sponsored and  therefore, taxpayer-funded. As a public entity, the appellants argue, the WIAA is constitutionally bound to provide media access to sports events through available technology.

Gannett Pares Collective News Staff of 3 NJ Dailies by Half

Image via WikipediaRoughly half of the combined 100 newsroom staffers at three of  Gannett Co.'s New Jersey dailies--Courier News, Daily Record and Home News Tribune--are getting pink-slipped, according to a memo leaked to the Gannett Blog and reported by AOL's Chatham Patch.

Declining circulation and shrinking advertising are fueling the layoffs and restructuring at the dailies, which last underwent layoffs and a major shake-up in 2009 that included moving all copy editing and design functions to the Neptune, N.J.-based Asbury Park Press. The Parsippany-based Daily Record serves Morris County; the Courier News readership is in Somerset County; and the Home News Tribune covers Middlesex County.

By total circulation, Gannett is the nation's largest newspaper publisher. This grim news hits hard because the dedicated staff of "TUOL" is fronted by a New Jersey native,  so it will take a while to fuhgeddabowdit.