Experts: After One Company Drops AP, Texas Tech Professors Say Large Papers to Expire or Evolve, Adapt to Hostile Business Climate

Metro USA, a company with daily newspapers in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, announced its intentions March 30 to cancel its contract with the Associated Press effective April 1. While many may view such actions as more evidence of the extinction of major daily newspapers and the old world order of media, two Texas Tech University journalism professors see it as the dawning of a media rebirth - one that will mimic the phoenix. The economic downturn and the changing media landscape will surely have its list of casualties, said Randy Reddick, chairman of the Department of Journalism in the College of Mass Communications. However, smart and adaptable printed news will survive the mass extinction to come out as a different product that evolved from today's circumstances. Tom Johnson, the Marshall and Sharleen Formby Regent's Professor of Convergent Media, said that while metro dailies will become more hyper-local, they'll still offer national and international news. But rather than producing those stories, they'll distribute links to their readers. The full story is available at /posts/2009/04/experts-analyze-the-extinction-of-daily-newspapers/. CONTACT: Randy Reddick, chairman, Department of Journalism, College of Mass Communications, Texas Tech University, (806) 742-6500 ext. 256, or r.reddick@ttu.edu; Tom Johnson, Marshall and Sharleen Formby Regent's Professor of Convergent Media, Department of Journalism, College of Mass Communications, (806) 742-3385 ext. 253, or t.johnson@ttu.edu