Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers 1833-2004

Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers 1833-2004 Compiled by Donald E. Oehlerts Revised by James L. Hansen Madison March 2021 Division of Library, Archives and Museum Collections Copyright © 2019 by the Wisconsin Historical Society All Rights Reserved PREFACE At the time Donald Oehlerts wrote his preface in 1958, the world of newspapers seemed very stable, an industry that was confident and strong. Advertising was robust, circulation was growing, and the delivery of the daily newspaper to your doorstep was, for the most part, reliable, depending on your paper boy. But looks can be deceiving as the newspaper industry was experiencing subtle changes during the post-World War II years and, some may argue, even going back to the early 20th century. By the early 1950s, the number of daily newspapers across the country was beginning to decline, albeit slowly, but the trend had begun. The number of daily newspapers in Wisconsin declined after peaking at 63 newspapers in 1905, dropping to 50 in 1921 and 38 in 1960. The number of Wisconsin weekly newspapers also declined, dropping from a high of 591 in 1905 to 306 by 1938 and to 271 by 1959. Newspapers in Wisconsin and across the country were witnessing changes and trends in the industry over the years, including an increase in consolidations as chain ownership grew. Post-World War II trends, including suburbanization, rising costs and technology, were putting pressure on newspapers to change and adapt. But, ownership and publishers, on the whole, did not take heed of the warning signs. Growing circulation numbers and increased advertising revenue made for “blind eyes” and complacency. The ubiquitous arrogance of those running the newspaper industry kept it them from believing that newspapers would ever not be read. And, based on some of the numbers, why would they ever think otherwise? Newspapers had a stranglehold on the media market in the late 1950s. The household penetration of newspapers continued to be over one hundred percent. That is not to say that every household in the state and country received a newspaper, but the penetration number was over one hundred percent due to the fact that in many of the households since the early 20th century, more than one newspaper a day was read. But, heading into the 1960s, newspapers began to enter into a new era after decades of being the dominant media source. Television news came to the forefront during the 1960s, from the first televised presidential debates in 1960, to the Kennedy assassination coverage in 1963, to the space program and the Vietnam War throughout the rest of the decade. As television was beginning to flex its news media muscles, the American audience became accustomed to turning to television for breaking news coverage and the evening news. With additional media sources, advertisers found new outlets to market their products, taking advertising dollars away from newspapers. Newspapers began to feel a dent in their economic base, most drastically affecting those markets that were served by multiple newspapers. Moreover, television was also taking away people’s time during the evening that they used to spend reading the evening newspaper. The economic battle for advertising revenue coupled with the changing reading habits of afternoon newspaper subscribers caused many newspapers to fold. The number of cities in the U.S. served by two or more newspapers took a dramatic plunge, falling from 503 cities in 1923 to approximately 50 by 1980 (by 2015 the number was in single digits). By 1970, the household penetration of newspapers nationwide fell below one hundred percent for the first time since the early 20th century. By 1976, the percentage had fallen sharply to 76 percent. The number of newspapers in the U.S. had declined since 1958 for a number of reasons beyond the growth of television—reasons ranging from economic downturns, change in reading habits, mergers, rising costs, boycotts and strikes, less advertising revenue, small town newspaper owners retiring and others. GUIDE TO WISCONSIN NEWSPAPERS 1833-2004 ii Wisconsin newspapers, for the most part, echoed the changes taking place nationally. Despite the decreasing number of newspapers in the state, circulation and the number of readers statewide were increasing, growing to over 500,000 weekly readers and over 1 million daily readers by 1960. The circulation growth continued into the 1980s. This new era that newspapers found themselves moving towards was just the latest in a long run of changes that had an impact on newspapers. As the old saying goes, the only constant is change and that could not be truer for Wisconsin newspapers and those across the country, especially when it came to technology. The introduction of new printing technologies signaled the end-of-the-line for the jobs of Linotype operators and other specialized printing trades. The result was a rash of newspaper strikes across the country in cities such as Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Portland, St. Louis, St. Paul, San Jose, Seattle, and, in 1977, at Madison Newspapers, involving the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times. The 1970s brought more technological changes as the age of the computer was dawning in the newsrooms and production departments. At the same time, the design and look of newspapers were also changing. Through most of the 20th century, newspapers had a very familiar look with many stories on the front page, at times up to 30 individual articles, many with jumps to inside pages. The story count on page one went down with each passing decade, and the column width went from eight or nine in the first half of the century to six columns by the 1960s. In the late 1970s, however, many newspapers began offering a modular look on the pages, placing articles in square or rectangular blocks that were squared off at the bottom. Also, there were fewer articles on each page and fewer jumps. The look brought a more ordered layout to the page, allowing for a neater appearance that was easier to read. A very noticeable change in the look of newspapers during the 1970s was the advent of color photographs on the cover pages. This eye catching addition to the newspapers was a readers’ favorite, prompting newspapers to increase the size and display of color photography. Another factor that had a dramatic impact on the look and feel of newspapers was the launching of USA Today in 1982, a newspaper that distributed in all 50 states. Heavy on graphics and shortened articles, the successful national daily influenced newspaper editors throughout the country and Wisconsin. More detailed graphics, charts, timelines and maps, items that fit well into the modular designed pages, were being seen in newspapers across the state as subscribers enjoyed the easy to read information. The late 1970s and early 1980s brought more competition to newspapers with cable TV and the debut of the first all-news TV network, CNN. Newspaper editors were concerned about losing more readers so they turned to using consumer marketing research and readership surveys. Consequently much of the papers’ content was being directed to certain demographic segments of the population, depending on the survey results. From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, computers and technology were helping to make the newsrooms more efficient and to keep the look of the newspaper fresh and modern. Graphic editors and page designers, along with their Macintosh computers, were becoming key members of the newsroom. In the 1990s, the number of newspapers nationally continued to decline and the total circulation for the first time started to drop, but the overall profits continued to be excellent. The newspapers were GUIDE TO WISCONSIN NEWSPAPERS 1833-2004 iii generating such great annual returns that they caught the attention of venture capitalists and Wall Street. Newspapers were being purchased at inflated prices in a buying frenzy during the 1990s. Newspaper chains were adding newspapers to their growing collections. For the newspaper owners, publishers and stock investors, newspapers were on top of the world heading towards the 21st century. But the one change in the 1990s the newspapers were not ready for and has had the most dramatic effect on the industry was the Internet. Publishers did not believe anything could ever replace the print- on-paper product. Their complacency and over confidence caused the newspaper industry to fall behind as the fast-moving online world zoomed past. One of the initial newspaper casualties was the shrinkage of the classified ads, traditionally for years the “cash cow” of the newspaper industry. This dramatic loss of revenue, due to the upstart Craigslist, a web-based classified advertising business, and similar Internet sites, was a blow from which the newspaper industry has never recovered. Furthermore, newsprint costs continued to rise. The industry responded by shrinking the physical size of the newspapers, cutting inches from the papers’ width and by eliminating long-standing icons, such as the stock tables, TV schedules, book pages and decreasing the amount of space allotted to news. The hit newspapers took from the Internet was just the first in a one-two punch. The second was the downturn in the economy culminating with the “Great Recession,” wreaking havoc with the newspapers’ bottom line. Subscribers were being told to pay more while they were receiving less. Besides the physical product, newspapers were beginning to trim their workforce. Once the major economic downturn occurred in the fall of 2008, the number of jobs cut from every department increased. Newspapers nationwide and the state continued to see a decline in the number of newspapers, ad revenue and household penetration. By the year 2000, the household percentage had dipped to 53 and by 2010, the percentage had fallen below 40 percent with the downward spiral continuing.

Load more