The Social Cost of the Decline of Newspapers?Becker

We need to make sure we continue to support the traditional sources of news. With out them the truth may never be told. Professional journalists need our encouragement. -Peter

According to data compiled by my colleagues Matt Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, the number of daily newspapers in the United States has been declining for more than 90 years, from a peak of about 2200 to its present level of about 1400. The decline started with the advent of radio, accelerated with the growth of television, and continued of course as the Internet became more popular. The likelihood is that many more newspapers will disappear during the coming decade, and that dailies no longer will be a major source of information and news. This has already happened to evening newspapers: their circulation went from about five eights of the circulation of all dailies in 1940 to only about 12% at present.

A free press has been a foundation of democracies because the press spreads information about political and other developments. This is why one of the first moves totalitarian and other non-democratic governments make is to suppress the press. For example, the Iranian government has closed virtually all newspapers that are openly critical of the government. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the decline in the number of dailies, even if it rapidly accelerates, poses a major threat either to the viability of democracies, or to the spread of political and other information.

The main reason for this belief is that the Internet is far more efficient than newspapers in providing news, information, and opinion. This is obvious with respect to sports, financial developments, and weather since online updates are much more frequent than is possible even for the best papers. During the past 10 days of the Iranian election crisis, my wife and I turned mainly to the Internet for the very latest news and pictures on what was happening in Teheran and elsewhere in that country. These sources certainly included online editions of several newspapers, but also important were various online accounts by observers of and participants in the protests.

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