Local Paper Offers Various Los Angeles Business Services

Local Paper Offers Various Los Angeles Business Services

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The Los Angeles Times, the city's main newspaper, has suffered from circulation figures that have decreased since the mid-1990s. It has not been able to pass the one million mark, a milestone easily exceeded in earlier decades. The circulation drop may be because of a number of short-lived editors.

Other possible reasons for the circulation drop include an increase in cost, from 25 cents to 50 cents, or in the growth in readers preferring to read the online version. A leading editor characterized the decrease in circulation as an industry-wide issue that the paper had to address by putting more content on the Web site and placing breaking news there. One prominent journalist attributed the decline to the lack of local coverage featuring news items of interest to working people and organized labor.

The paper's content and design style has been overhauled several times in recent years in attempts to help increase circulation. In 2000, a thorough redesign more closely aligned the news sections and changed the Local section to the California section, with more detailed coverage. Another major change in 2005 saw the Sunday Opinion section renamed the Sunday Current section, with a radical change in its presentation.

In 2006, The Times shuttered its San Fernando Valley printing press, leaving such operations in nearby Orange County. Also in the year, the newspaper announced its circulation down 5.3 percent from 2005. The paper's loss of circulation is the greatest out of the top ten newspapers in the United States Despite this recent circulation decline, many in the newspaper industry have applauded the newspaper's moves to increase its reliance on building its individually-paid circulation base.

In other cautionary news, the credibility of the Times suffered greatly when it was revealed in 1999 that a revenue-sharing relationship was in place between it and Staples Center in the preparation of a magazine heralding the opening of the sports arena. The magazine's editors and writers were not made aware of the arrangement, which breached the separation between advertising and journalistic functions at U.S. newspapers. The Times has also come under controversy for its decision to discontinue the weekday examples of the Garfield comic strip in 2005, in favor of a newer comic strip, while retaining the Sunday edition. Garfield was dropped altogether shortly after that.


About the Author:
Matt Paolini is a engineering industry writer for CityBook, the family-safe yellow pages online, which carries an extensive directory on Los Angeles solar energy.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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