Newsstand owner adapts to survive media crisis

Newsstand owner Jesus Erro: Publishers are fudging their sales numbers.
PAMPLONA, Spain - Those who study the business of media tend to look at it from the perspective of journalists and publishers. But the owner of a newsstand in the heart of this provincial capital has a different point of view.

Jesus Erro, 56, has owned and operated Caprichos Books and Stationery for the past 24 years. He has seen the good times and the bad.

For the first decade or so, sales of magazines and newspapers -- about three fourths of his business -- were strong. But beginning in 2008, with the combination of the financial crisis and the Internet's impact on sales of print products, the business has gone down steadily.

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"For small shops in this industry, it's very difficult to survive. A few years ago, when there was a favorable economic climate, everything was straightforward, more or less. You never expected to make a lot of money but you did expect to make a decent income. But now with everything that has come along -- the Internet, the economic crisis -- Pffff. We are trying to make just enough money to survive in these kinds of shops."
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