Last week we described the newspaper business as a satellite falling out of orbit. This week it appears to be burning up in the atmosphere.

The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report showed a 3.5 percent drop in circulation – to about 50 million — for the largest U.S. newspapers over the six-month period ending in March. That level is the lowest in more than 60 years. The population has more than doubled since that time, so the market share for the “mass” medium known as newspapers in the U.S. is now about 18 percent or less.

The news on the advertising front is worse. The downward trajectory of revenues and ad share for newspapers is so steep that Advertising Week, the bible of the advertising industry, initiated a front-page installment called “The Newspaper Death Watch.”

While some news enterprises are finally embracing digital media, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that window of opportunity seems to be slipping away, too. Revenues from online products are about 10 percent or less of the declining print pot. And for the first time, pure-plays dominate the local ad-revenue marketplace where newspapers once reigned.

None of this seems to phase the industry trade-group Newspaper Association of America, which has cranked out press releases about the “jump” in online newspaper advertising and audience, or the World Association of Newspapers which trumpets newspapers as “a multi-media growth business” in a promotion for its World Newspaper Congress in Sweden next month.

See Also: A Satellite Falling Out of Orbit

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Christy Bradford, who taught me how to be an editor, died late last week at her home in Kansas City. She had been teaching journalism at the University of Kansas since 1999.

I love the description of Christy by her students at KU: “combination den mother/drill sergeant.” It was the same for us in her newsroom, a creative yet disciplined place where Christy gently demanded — and usually got — our best.

I suppose that many of us look back at a time when people, relationships, and work converged in a moment that we were meant to be a part. I had more of those moments in Detroit than I deserve, and Christy was at the heart of them. In a place as tough as a Detroit, she could find the deeper of meaning of events that became the hallmark of coverage at The Detroit News for a few extraordinary years. It was never easy, but it was always intoxicating. No one understood the ingredients of a good story more than Christy. No one had more fun stirring them into something meaningful or fun. She was a friend who taught me to be a good editor, and a editor who became a good friend.

Never sentimental, she understood that when it was time to go, it was time to go. Too soon. Too soon.

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“There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools,” said the early 20th Century designer and writer Eric Gill. I’m one of them. Two, fun, font games test the fool in you.

The first is “Font, coffee or baby name.” I was five for five (I think). I’ll reveal answers and score later.

The second, The Rather Difficult Font Game, is for those fools who think they know the difference between Goudy, Gaudi and gaudy. Not a good test for MySpace designers, but my 24-out-of-34 was disappointing, too.

All of which recalls the priceless zefrank video send-up, “I knows me some ugly.”

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Is Craigslist insignificant? I’ve weighed in to a small debate:

Publishers underestimated Craigslist once with devastating results. Newspapers, which derive nearly 80 of their revenue from classified advertising, lost half or more of their lucrative classified business over the past five years, a loss that now threatens the economic stability of the industry. So while, as my friend and former publisher John Greenman suggests, Craigslist may not be remarkable for the amount of money it takes from a single newspaper market, it is hardly inconsequential. Were it not for its mostly free approach Craigslist could do much greater damage.

Now the question is whether publishers will make another, perhaps fatal, mistake by missing the point of the Craigslist experience: shifting trust in the digital marketplace. Craig Newmark is a mensch, the trusted face of online classifieds, an always-on customer-service celebrity with the world’s biggest buddy list. “Trust is the new trust,” is how the enigmatic Newmark once explained it to me. What he means is that in an environment where anyone can do what he does, the authentic expression of trust is the key differentiator. That may not be entirely true, but it is enough true to crush a greedy, feudal business predicated on controlled distribution and an arcane classification system for categorizing commerce among and between people. It is the emergence of everyone as an online broker in an open, connected marketplace that warrants coverage, breathless as that may be.

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For the past week I’ve been playing with the private “alpha” of a new social bookmarking tool called socialmedian. You can also give it a try. To register as a tester, use this code on the signup page: wemedia. (This code is available for 100 testers).
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It is a big deal, or at least it used to be, when the nation’s publishers and editors gather at an annual conference to talk about business, craft, the role of newspapers in democracy, information technology, and the future. The latter has dominated the conversation lately so the mood has been decidedly somber.

But the despair of recent years seemed muted last week when about 1200 leaders from the news industry came to Washington at a joint conference of the Newspaper Association of America, American Society of Newspaper Editors and a newspaper production and technology exhibition.

Resignation filled the corridors of Washington’s drab and confusing convention center as publishers and editors contemplated the demise of the printed newspaper amid the emergence of digital media. The annual sessions with political leaders, as well as the opening of the industry’s $450 million museum, provided the only energy for a satellite falling out of orbit.

For that matter, there was little enthusiasm for the session on social media in which I participated. About 60 people attended our session. My slides are here.

The conference exposed troubled and turbulent times for newspapers. The technology hall was deserted, a stark contrast to the high-energy, shoulder-to-shoulder exhibitions that other sectors hold. One major publisher held a high-profile retirement party for a news exec getting out while the getting is still there. Editors shared painful stories about change, layoffs, finding news jobs, and dreams deferred. Some, already retired, returned to spin tales of better days gone by.

As with all their conferences, NAA and ASNE made and spun news. Highlights from a strange, sad week.

– At a luncheon for the editors hosted by the Associated Press, MediaNews founder and CEO Dean Singleton quizzed Sen. Barack Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where “Obama bin Laden is still at large?” “I think that was Osama bin Laden,” a somber Obama answered.

— Two reporters covering Sen. John McCain greeted their-favorite-senator-running-for-president with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts and sugar-coated questions that brought groans from fellow journalists. “We even brought you your favorite treat,” said AP’s Liz Sidoti. “Oh, yes, with sprinkles!” replied the candidate, who ate it up.

– A glass elevator in the Newseum stocked with colorful cocktails lifted news execs to seven floors of digital exhibits and sumptuous spreads prepared by Wolfgang Puck. In a city of free museums, the public must pay $20 for the privilege, drinks not included, of appreciating the Constitutional amendment that guarantees citizens free speech and a free press. Happily, the best of the Newseum is free: the daily, front pages of newspapers displayed as posters outside the building.

– The Newspaper Association of America issued a press release boasting that newspaper-owned web sites earned more revenue than all local media companies combined. Reason to celebrate, I suppose, if you ignore the pure-play Web sites that now have a 44 percent share of the local online ad market, eclipsing the share held by newspaper sites, currently about 27 percent and sinking. Which is like saying that Sen. Clinton is the leading the Democratic candidate if you don’t count Sen. Obama.

– The American Society of Newspaper’s annual census showed that the number of full-time journalists working at America’s daily newspapers shrank by 4.4 percent in the past year, the largest decrease in the past 30 years. Given the performance of newspaper moderators at the candidates’ sessions, it appeared as if the best journalists had either left their jobs, were laid off, or didn’t attend the newspaper conference.

See Also: The Burn

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Here are the slides (PDF) from Dale’s presentation today at the NewsPaper Association of America conference in Washington, DC. (Current membership and login required for download. To join or renew, click here.)

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Tech entrepreneur Joi Ito is the new CEO of Creative Commons, the alternative copyright licensing organization that has spawned widespread sharing and reuse of digital content and educational materials – like course lecture notes available for free from MIT. The founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, has moved on to a new project, Change Congress, which describes itself as a movement to increase transparency in the US government’s legislative branch. So far it appears to be an online pledge campaign around a set of commitments, like “Don’t take money from lobbyists and political action commiteees.” The approach is different, but the mission sounds to me awfully similar to the Sunlight Foundation, which “serves as a catalyst to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government.” More about the Creative Commons changes and $4 million in new funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation via Joi Ito’s blog.

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What would you do to provide a better news service for your community? Or for any community? David Cohn, one of our We Media Fellows at this year’s We Media Miami conference, is trying to ferret out good ideas for one community, San Jose, California, from an obvious source: people who live there.

On April 19 he’s ripping a page from the tech world and organizing an “unconference” to help the San Jose Mercury News talk with and learn from, well, anyone. He’s calling the effort CopyCamp, an homage to BarCamp and FooCamp, events for software developers and techies without a fixed agenda. They set an agenda, then try to come up with brilliant ideas, new code or at least new friends.

What brilliant ideas, new code or new friends might CopyCampers come up with?
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Jordan’s Queen Rania is answering questions about stereotypes of the Arab World on YouTube. She says “I want people to know the real Arab world, to see it unedited, unscripted and unfiltered, to see the personal side of my region, to know the places and faces and rituals and cultures that shape the part of the world that I call home.”

Here’s one response: A pleasant photo-video montage, set to a Natalie Merchant song, Carnival.

Analysis: If she’s going to be taken seriously, and have any impact, the beautiful queen, sans burka, is going to need to respond directly, rather than dismiss, the more challenging questions she fields about violence and rage in the Arab world – directed against women, the West, Jews and anyone who insults Islam, as seen here:
(WARNING: This has some disturbing images that are inappropriate for children)

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