Frankly the demise of the newspaper is not surprising. Seeing how everything in our economy is taking a turn for the worst, the newspaper is just another notch in the bedpost. Being a broadcast major, I am kind of excited to see this shift from paper form to a more technical form. I like the action it provides, the visual aspects and the interaction that the web offers. I have never been a big newspaper reader, because I was never that interested in everything it covered. With the advances of the internet I can have everything I want in a matter of seconds. The timeliness of the internet better suits my life style. This shift shows how far we have come as a nation and shows how we are adapting as a culture in general, even during these hard times.
Yes, many people who belong to the print world are seeing this more as a funeral procession than a gain of any sort, but I’d be surprised to hear that no one in the print department gets their news online. It may not be as detailed in the first article, but it gives readers the motivation to open a new tab and research the topics that interest them. According to an article in “The New Yorker” by Eric Alterman, newspapers have been around for nearly 300 years and few believe it will survive. No one in America or abroad can figure out how to save them.
Newspapers have only survived this long because advertisers have kept them afloat. Now that more advertising is done online as well as other forums, newspapers have begun to dwindle rapidly. Jobs are being cut everywhere, and there is no way people are going to risk their livelihoods on saving the classic newspapers. Places all over the world have lost several newspapers worldwide. Fox News reports that Seattle may just find itself without a daily printed newspaper. As the Seattle Post Intelligencer gets ready to print its last edition, citizens wonder whether its competitor, The Seattle Post is far behind. Anne Bremner, co-chairwoman of the Committee of Seattle, who fought to keep these two newspapers alive, fears what is to come. “What a tragedy it would be in a city like this, a city with one of the highest literacy rates in the country,” Bremner said.
I don’t think that we will ever get rid of the newspaper in a printed form completely, but I do believe that the classic newspaper we know today is going to vanish. Tweaks will be made and I feel this is for the better. It is not sensible to keep it around if it’s diminishing in market value at the rate it is. When the average reader of the classic newspaper is 55 years old, something needs to be done fast or I can’t see how the newspaper stands a chance.
*Jenny Pierron
As Jenny said with in her post, something does need to be done about the decline of print news, it needs to go away for good. This might seem like a harsh or far-fetched idea but hear me out on this one. The public opinion of the newspaper has been at a steady decline ever since people discovered publishing news online. It's just so easy and convenient! News companies don't have to go through the jumps and hoops of printing an actual hard copy of news anymore. Journalists can just sit back at their computers and type away and with a click of their mouse, an entire article can be posted online in seconds. This way of publishing the news is not only time-efficient but also cheaper and easier on the environment.
ReplyDeleteYes, some people will say that they don't have access to the internet or wouldn't know where to start to find the news they like. First of all, everybody has some sort of access to the internet these days. If an individual does not have the 15$ per month to spent on the most basic internet plan for their home, anyone can go to their public library and have access to their free services. As for people who wouldn't know where to start, I understand because the internet is a big place an can get kind of scary sometimes. Nowadays, almost all major news publications have their own websites that provide almost the exact same information in the print versions. Most of the time, the articles are more up to date and contain external links to more information about the topic covered so that the reader can delve deeper into the story if he or she wanted.
I feel the movement from the hard copy to the "e-copy" is a progressive step toward the future of journalism. Like Jenny stated within her article, "the average reader of the classic newspaper is 55 years old." Where are the rest of the population getting their news from? According to the NAA or the Newspaper Association of America(NAA.org), more that 75 million unique visitors visit news websites, per month! That is one-third, or 38% of all online users. That is a staggeringly huge number of people who prefer to get their news online rather than through hard copy. Maybe its a sign that the public has just moved on and its time for the newspaper to retire for good.