Newpapers: Oh, how the mighty have fallen

Photo and headline:  Florida Bulldog, 12/18/2024

Autumn the time of year when newspapers typically file with the U.S. Postal Service their annual Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation. In September, the once-mighty Herald’s statement disclosed that as of Aug. 18 its total paid circulation had dropped to a shocking 12,623 – a 76.25 percent plunge since 2018 when circulation was 53,141. 

More precisely, that’s the average number of copies sold during the preceding 12 months at what the Herald reported was an annual subscription price of $1,819.48. You do the math on that loss. 

Once upon a time, the Miami Herald was considered among the best in its class.  Which is why Retiring Guy subscribed to the newspaper for a time after the TIME article was published, reading it a few days late as it had to be mailed to Wisconsin.
  

TIME, 4/30/1984

The Miami Herald 

There might seem to be more than enough news in south Florida to occupy any newspaper: a restive black community, an assertively bilingual Cuban population, an infestation of gun-wielding drug dealers, banks that accept large deposits in cash, a police department that seems prone to provoking charges of brutality. The Miami Herald covers its parlous territory as thoroughly and fearlessly as any other city daily, whether in exposing racial discrimination in housing or in probing terrorist acts by anti-Castro Cuban exiles. But it does more. Its reportage of Latin America, aided by bureaus in Rio de Janeiro, San Salvador and, soon, Managua, is among the very best in the U.S. 

On local news, the paper has been as aggressive as Chicago’s dailies were in the era of The Front Page. When a zoning series last year charged that planning principles were being subordinated to the desires of developers, the paper’s unyielding executive editor John McMullan lamented that the articles did not result in indictments. Said he: “We are proud of explanatory journalism, but a couple of convictions is a wonderful way to explain the problem.” Yet the Herald is compassionate: Associate Editor Gene Miller has won two Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting in murder cases, including one in 1976 that resulted in the freeing of two innocent men convicted of a slaying. 

After McMullan retired last July, some observers claimed that the Herald went soft. His powers were divided between Publisher Richard Capen, 49, who favors a less accusatory approach, and Executive Editor Heath Meriwether, 40, who spends much of his time discussing journalistic ethics in columns and at public meetings. Coverage is increasingly featurish; staff members joke that they sometimes produce “Jell-O journalism,” with the main point of a story buried beneath paragraphs of scene setting. 

The paper’s columnists and specialists lag behind the newsroom. The Herald covers business adequately, especially in a weekly section that ranges up to 78 pages, but is uneven in reviewing the arts and undistinguished in writing about lifestyles. Visually it is blocky, and photos are often muddy. Its primary flaw: like many other major dailies, it suggests that being serious precludes having any fun.