New Circulation Figures for Maine Newspapers

By Al Diamon

The Sun rises – or does it? For the third year running, the Lewiston Sun Journal has reported an increase in daily circulation. In its annual filing with the U.S. Postal Service, which requires information on ownership and number of copies distributed in order for newspapers to qualify for a second-class mailing permit, the Sun Journal said its average circulation Monday through Saturday rose from 31,162 last year to 33,986 in 2012. That’s a 9 percent hike and would appear to return the paper to a level not seen since the beginning of the recession.

There’s some reason to be skeptical of these figures. The Lewiston paper doesn’t submit its circulation data to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which has different standards than the Postal Service for counting sales. The most recent ABC figures showed that every Maine paper that was audited experienced a drop in circulation. Given the economy in central Maine and the quality of the Lewiston daily, there’s no reason to think the Sun Journal is bucking that trend. In addition, an article in Mainebiz earlier this year put the Sun’s daily average at approximately 25,000 copies sold, a number that leaves it much closer to the percentage dips in circulation at other Maine dailies.

The Bangor Daily News also reported its Postal Service figures on Oct. 1. Its Monday-through-Friday sales took a 5 percent hit, falling from 48,726 in 2011 to 46,207 this year. That’s consistent with the trend the Bangor paper has exhibited in these filings in recent years, as well as in its ABC reports.

Other Maine daily and weekly papers have not yet published their Postal Service reports. If you spot any of them (usually stuck in a corner of the front section where they’ll attract as little notice as possible), be sure to send the numbers to me.

Ten-day delay: The MaineToday Media newspapers are to be commended for commissioning their own polls this year, rather than relying exclusively on surveys done by other organizations, often with partisan slants. But MaineToday – publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal – opened itself up to some deserved criticism for keeping the results of its most recent poll secret for 10 days.

According to a story published in the Sept. 30 Telegram and written by State House reporter John Richardson, “The Press Herald received the poll results Sept. 20 and spent the following week analyzing them, contacting respondents, interviewing experts and developing articles and graphics based on the findings.”

I read the entire package of pieces on the poll. It didn’t appear to contain anything that couldn’t have been assembled in a day or two (how long does it take to make some pie charts?), interviews with nobody who should have been difficult to reach and no insights into the numbers beyond those that are pretty standard for any such article. In short, there’s no good reason most of this stuff couldn’t have been released way back on Sept. 21 or 22.

Even if putting together all aspects of its coverage took longer than expected, that’s still no excuse for not publishing the general conclusions of the poll immediately and then following up with more in-depth reporting later. That way, there’d be less chance of the information becoming outdated by new developments, as the pace of the campaigns picked up (which is what, to some extent, happened).

To keep the data to itself for so long raises serious questions about MaineToday’s news judgment.

Cutting-edge journalism: The following promo for “News 13 on Fox” by Jana Barnello ran on WPFO-TV on Sept. 30 during the late NFL game:

“Police in Brunswick continue to look for a man they say stabbed a woman early this morning with three small children inside the home.”

Sharp kids, no doubt.

Al Diamon can be emailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.