Listening Post - US newspaper industry - 19 Sep 08 - Part 2

The Listening Post's Robin Armstrong reports on the ailing US newspaper industry. This is a chronic affliction - both advertising revenue and readership are shrinking, and newspapers across the country are performing something of a disappearing act. Moreover, US newspapers have seen their share value drop more than any other sector in the media industry, papers are haemorrhaging staff. They are faced with a choice: either migrate to the internet, or die. The Listening Post goes to California, home of one of America's oldest and best-known titles, the San Francisco Chronicle, to see if the US newspaper industry is about to publish its own obituary. In Newsbytes, we look at a cartoon saga in South Africa; an inflammatory DVD about Islamic extremism; media coverage of the forthcoming Belarusian parliamentary elections; a tightening of the grip on the media in China and Russian PM, Vladimir Putin, who is said to be fuming that an exclusive interview with CNN was heavily edited. Closing our show with this week's Video of the Week is a quirky viral showing North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il as an animated video game character. Created by a German entertainment show, the video puts Jong Il through a Super Mario-like sequence, complete with hostile enemy countries and nuclear bombs. Watch it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QdzzZCgFbU

AlJazeera | September 19, 2008

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