Newspapers face evolution, not extinction

AS The Manila Times marks its 121st founding anniversary today, it may seem odd to be cheerful given the challenging times ahead. Print journalists are often asked about the future of newspapers and I have always replied with cautious optimism.

Granted, global trends are discouraging. In the United States, The Washington Post recently reported that weekday print circulation shrank from about 60 million in 1994 to about 35 million last year. Worse, the 2018 figure already combines print and digital circulation. The Post added that advertising revenue in the US fell from $65 billion in 2000 to less than $19 billion in 2016, and that newsroom employment dropped almost 40 percent from 1994 to 2014.