There are a lot of businesses, large and small, that probably won’t survive this unprecedented disruption.

A Facebook post by veteran journalist Bob Jones reminds us that the news media isn’t immune from the financial fallout.

Oh, you won’t have my pithy MidWeek columns any more to either please you or piss you off. Was laid off today, along with all other paid contributors. I’m wondering when the ax falls at the Star-Advertiser, especially in the sports department with no sports to cover.

There’s going to be some bleeding before this is over and it won’t be staunched by a $1200 per person handout from the government or low-interest loans from the state.

With the shutdown of bars, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, concerts, and travel, and the resulting spike in unemployment, advertisers are going to be dealing with their own economic woes, and our daily newspapers are going to be taking a big hit alongside MidWeek.

And this is a tidal wave of bad news for newspapers.

The remaining alternative weeklies across the country are the first to get hit with what observers are calling “total annihilation.”

This has, without a doubt, been the single worst week in the history of America’s alternative press. They’re facing a double blow: Not only have their main advertising sources dried up, so have their main points of distribution. (Where do you pick up an alt-weekly? At a bar, at a restaurant, at a theater — all the places that have gone dark.)

A well-capitalized company with confidence in its long-term future may have the luxury of seeing the coronavirus response as a temporary obstacle. Yeah, it’ll be painful — but eventually things will go back to some version of normal and the old revenue engines can restart. But alt-weeklies have been in some version of crisis mode for the better part of a decade, as smartphones, online events listings, and social media have each moved against their core offerings. It’s entirely unclear whether “normal” is two weeks away, two months away, or two years away. And when cities do recover, will those institutions alts rely on — those arts venues, those theaters, those restaurants — be in any kind of shape to help?
[See “Total annihilation”: Coronavirus may just be the end for many alt-weeklies, NeimanLab.org, March 19, 2020.]

See also:

“COVID-19’s impact on media businesses has deepened quickly — but there could be a glimmer of hope,” Poynter.org, March 18, 2020.

“Madison’s Isthmus a COVID-19 casualty,” The Capital Times, March 19, 2020.

Meanwhile, Jones has set up a blog, The Bob Jones Report.

Welcome to the Bob Jones Report (www.bobjonesreport.com), the site for sometimes-unorthodox but always-thoughtful comment on politics, social issues and the most controversial happenings of our time.

I’m no journalistic neophyte. I’ve worked as a reporter at 5 newspapers, as a reporter and anchor at a Honolulu television station, and a foreign correspondent with NBC News in Africa and Southeast Asia.

My approach is neither Democrat nor Republican, neither left nor right. I try to apply common sense and let the facts speak for what seems to be sensible solutions.