Even though our best journalism often is flawed by strategy frames, cynicism, and other bad habits, the audience for serious public issues is impressive. In all, the paper ended up printing 400,000 copies of the series. When it was published later as a book, it sold more than 500,000 more copies. 85 Televised local town hall meetings in Wichita and other communities also have led their markets, even when scheduled against major sporting events. The marketplace strength of the respected New York Times continues, while tabloids like the New York Post struggle to survive.
Good newspapers have a halo effect for advertisers.
Most would rather be associated with a credible news product than a tabloid or a circular. CNN and C-SPAN have small hourly audiences but significant cumulative daily and weekly audiences. 86 Dataquest, Inc., a Silicon Valley research firm, was surprised to find how many multimedia customers polled in the summer of 1993 were interested in getting the news. But they were actually more interested in information, and news ranked fairly highly in the information category. 87 Ross Perot's folksy deficit seminars during the 1992 presidential campaign attracted enormous audiences.