Stopping the presses – 142 times in 2009

It’s a great line in a movie and a cliché many of us use. Yet as we come to the end of the year, the presses did actually stop running for 142 daily and weekly newspapers this year.

In places where the presses still run, there are fewer reporters filling the pages that hold the ink and information. More than 90,000 people lost jobs in the various print publishing industries in the past 12 months.

It’s no secret that traditional, mainstream media is struggling to adapt to a world full of Google News, Facebook, and Twitter feeds. But as fast as information moves today, context is sometimes lost.

More points of view and more information helps us all better understand issues, ideas, and what it all means. Yet as of this year, there are fewer traditional voices sharing information and ideas.

Erica Smith a “veteran media executive,” has created a map that shows the different places where news organizations have closed.

We thought the map and the perspective is interesting as we look at what happened this year and what 2010 could be like.