Shafer: The standard biz section is doomed

Slate.com media columnist Jack Shafer has a column that looks at the fact that newspapers knew they were in trouble 30 years ago, but haven’t been able to stem the losses in circulation or advertising.

One of his suggestions for what newspapers can do to remain alive in the future does not bode well for business journalists.

Shafer wrote, “I’m not the type to predict the future, if only because I’m so bad at it. But print editions of newspapers, which saw the endgame coming 30 years ago and did everything they could to forestall it, need to figure out what they’re best at and double down in those realms. To give one example, if newspapers think they’re in the editorial business, the slimming of the business pages at most dailies indicates that the standard business section is doomed and the copy should be folded into the rest of the paper to make room for a section the masses really want to read. Sports sections that refuse to retool themselves as the smart supplement to ESPN can kiss their pages goodbye.”

Read more here.