Parent Co. Gannett Tells USA Today, ‘Enough With the Opinions Already!’

Newspaper chain Gannett has told its newsrooms across the nation to cut down on opinion pieces and biased articles which are “repelling” their readers and driving away subscribers. Gannett, which owns USA Today as well as local papers in virtually every state, is rated “Left-Center” by Media Bias / Fact Check, so you can bet the readers aren’t objecting to the rare conservative viewpoint. No, they’re just sick of being lectured to.

According to DailyMail, a committee of editors from the chain’s newspapers said in an April presentation that “readers don’t want us to tell them what to think. They don’t believe we have the expertise to tell anyone what to think on most issues.” DailyMail continued:

Readers this week reacted to the news by telling the media company to hire ‘writers that aren’t left-wing activists.’  Americans’ faith in the media has nose-dived in recent years thanks largely to the widely left-wing bias of many national publications and news networks.

It’s not their audience’s losing faith in the media that has Gannett spooked though. It’s lost revenue from cancelled subscriptions. From the Washington Post:

Not only are editorials and opinion columns “among our least read content,” the committee said, but they are “frequently cited” by readers as a reason for canceling their subscriptions.

USA Today has one of the largest newspaper circulations in the nation, and, when combined with its website USATODAY.com, reaches seven million readers daily. This decision to pull back on serving up opinion is a big deal.

As a result of the order, Gannet’s over 250 newspapers are already scaling back their opinion pages and scrapping political endorsements except on the local level. It seems that Gannett is learning the same lesson as CNN—that constant lecturing, bias, and shaming don’t make people interested in your content. Ratings-challenged CNN is going through its own re-tooling, as our Nick Arama reported in April:

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