Paper Cuts

Erica Smith, a "journalist, a designer, a novice programmer" at the St Louis Dispatch runs Paper Cuts, a site that lists the total number of newspaper jobs lost each year for the past three years, with a map showing where the jobs where lost.

Look above the map on the right and you'll see a drop down menu that allows you to go back through to 2007. You'll also find a map of newspapers that have closed. You can toggle the years on and off at the bottom left of the map.

Which raises the question constantly on the lips of news consumers these days: What happens in a town where the newspapers fold? A New York Times article, News Without Newspapers, asks that question, and looks at hyperlocal blogs' ability to replace traditional news institutions.

These blogs and database scouring sites face the same financial issues the old news organizations face: a lack of money. And being hyperlocal their intent, in a sense, is to reduce potential audience size. So you might say we're talking about scaling down revenue in a business that is already broke, which doesn't seem to promise a bright future.


Elsewhere in the paper the Times looks at its own paper the Boston Globe, which has thinned its staff several times but still faces the threat of closure.