Presstime, the monthly magazine of the Newspaper Association of America (http://www.naa.org/), will soon cease to be in print. Presstime, its staff already much reduced, will continue on the association’s website, the New York Times has reported.
The NYT report said: [Link]
“No one wanted to close down Presstime,” John F. Sturm, president and chief executive of the association, said in an e-mail exchange. “This was purely an economic decision — saving in excess of $500,000 annually — for a trade association that, by the end of this year, will have halved the amount of dues it collects from its members and cut its staff by two-thirds.” The magazine, printed since 1969, has a circulation of about 20,000.
Dues paid by newspapers support both the association and Presstime. But as the industry fights for survival, hundreds of papers have dropped out of the group, including some big chains, like the MediaNews Group and Lee Enterprises. The association has lowered its dues to stem the exodus.
The Newspaper Association is not the only trade group in the industry cutting back as its members do the same. The American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America both called off their annual conferences this year, after it became clear that many of the executives who would ordinarily attend decided to stay home and save the money instead. Attendance at the Newspaper Association’s own conferences was down sharply this year.
The group has long advised papers on changing technology, business practices and law, but those functions have shrunk along with resources. In its slimmed-down form, the association focuses primarily on lobbying in Washington for things like changing tax laws to the industry’s advantage.
