The State Of St. Louis Print Media

It’s been a tough decade for the media business, particularly for outlets focused on disseminating the written word. Publications have closed across the U.S. Many newspapers no longer offer daily editions. And many of the online news outlets vying to replace (or at least supplement) them have seen layoffs of their own. But despite a host of challenges to the advertising-based business model, St. Louis finds itself with a surprisingly robust print-media landscape. In this segment we discuss St. Louis’ media history and the current media landscape with Frank Absher, a radio veteran and the executive director of the St. Louis Media History Foundation; Gilbert Bailon, the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; longtime local writer Jeannette Cooperman, who is an inductee in this year’s St. Louis Media Hall of Fame; and Antonio French, a former alderman and mayoral candidate who became adept at using Twitter and Vine to chronicle the Ferguson protests in real time. French also recently started a pair of weekly newspapers.