With respect, the absolute peak for print advertising shown here is at least 15 years before Facebook and Google became dominant players in digital advertising. We can blame the platforms for a lot of things, but killing print isn’t one of them. This narrative has to stop. https://twitter.com/DomPonsford/status/1387709194904784897
^ Print advertising, I should have said.

Circulation, as noted here before, was on the decline for decades before Web was even invented.

Longitudinal studies show persistent generational shifts in preference away from traditional news sources.
But yet this idea that somehow Facebook is to blame for the death of local newspapers persists.

This fantasy has to stop.

Before we can save local news we have to understand what’s killing it. And while it is perhaps satisfying to blame Mark Zuckerberg, it’s also wrong.
Or, at least misleading.

By this (il)logic, Tim Berners Lee has done as much to kill local newspapers as Mark Zuckerberg ever has done.

Have G/FB hurt digital display ads for local news? Yes. But look at that original chart and tell me that’s why local newspapers are hurting.
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