Profs. Marc Edge will be delivering a Research Seminar entitled 'The Death of Newspapers is Greatly Exaggerated' on Friday 15 December at 12:15 in Room 414, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences.

Entrance is free but a place needs to be reserved by sending an email to info.maks@um.edu.mt. Students and academics are cordially invited to attend.

Abstract

Primary research using data gleaned from company financial reports is examined to find that newspapers are mostly still profitable despite headlines about layoffs, closures, and even bankruptcies. Layoffs are a mechanism for newspapers to cope with falling advertising revenues and closures are often arranged to eliminate competition and create more profitable monopolies. Even newspaper companies that have gone bankrupt are usually profitable but have become unable to service their debt with lower earnings. Dr. Marc Edge discusses his 2014 study of the newspaper industries in the U.S. and Canada, as well as his ongoing research into the UK newspaper industry.

Speaker Profile

Marc Edge is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communication. He was a newspaper journalist for twenty years in his native Canada and is the author of five books, including Greatly Exaggerated: The Myth of the Death of Newspapers (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2014) and The News We Deserve: The Transformation of Canada's Media Landscape (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2016).