Tedium – Dead on Archival: “…Newspapers and print journalism in general have been dying a slow death for more than 20 years now. While causes and the current state of the industry are very much in debate, there is little argument that print journalism is currently in a dire state. The Hussman School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill counted some 1,800 American newspapers that have closed since 2004. The corresponding loss of readership has been shocking, totaling nearly 50 million with unclear evidence whether those news audiences have moved online. For example, Nieman Lab examined the aftermath of The Independent, a British newspaper, choosing to close its print operations in favor of online-only distribution. When the paper made the decision in 2016, its print circulation was only 40,000, compared to more than 58 million online readers. However, those print readers accounted for more than 80 percent of the consumption of The Independent’s content. The consequences of these closures have not been evenly distributed geographically in the U.S. California lost the most daily publications; New York and Illinois lost the most weeklies. More than 70 percent of closures were in metro areas that served hyperlocal communities, like suburbs and urban neighborhoods “where residents have historically relied on community weeklies to keep them informed.” Rural communities have seen closures too, of course, but surprisingly, only around 500 of these papers have closed or merged since 2004. The study went on to note that the vast majority of daily newspapers in America have a circulation of less than 15,000 issues. What happens when a newspaper closes really depends on where it happens. Most major cities still have at least one print publication but closure can be devastating in rural areas. The lack of information can have devastating effects too numerous to list here. However, John Oliver did a pretty great deep dive into the consequences of all this in 2016…”