The Birmingham Post might cease daily publication after 152 years, becoming the first flagship newspaper of a large city to go weekly in response to the recession and competition from online media.
Sorry, but this Financial Times lead misses the point.
Birmingham is a city with more than one million people (three million if you include the metro area).
The reach of this paper is minimal.
The circulation of the Birmingham Post dropped from 18,500 to 12,700 since 2000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Why?
Because it is a bad local paper.
Period.
Please, let’s be serious.
The Internet doesn’t kill good newspapers.
Just the bad ones.
Papers with no voice.
No audience.
No business.
Image: Meeting of the Birmingham Political Union (1832-1833), oil on canvas, by Benjamin Haydon