FILE PHOTO: Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger visits the shareholder shopping day in a golf cart as part of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo
February 12, 2020
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – Charlie Munger, the longtime business partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Inc <BRKa.N>, on Wednesday said daily newspapers “are all going to die,” as technological advances cause revenue to dry up.
Munger, 96, spoke at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp <DJCO.O>, the Los Angeles newspaper publishing company he chairs, though he is better known for his more than four decades as a Berkshire vice chairman.
Wednesday’s meeting came two weeks after Berkshire threw in the towel on its own newspaper empire, selling 80 daily and weekly papers including its hometown Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska to Lee Enterprises Inc <LEE.N> for $140 million.
“What’s happened is that technological change is destroying daily newspapers in America,” Munger said. “They’re all dying.”
Munger said a few newspapers, which Buffett has said include the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, will survive the shakeout.
Daily Journal’s meeting was being webcast by CNBC.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
