Death of Print Newspapers

Online Publication and The Newspaper Industry

Over the last 70 years, the ways in which we are informed about news and current events has changed drastically. With the invention of the television and the computer, how we are informed is also changing. Now, we spread information through the internet, a wildfire of tweets and shared blog posts and videos. Even the majority of well-known newspapers like the New York Time, the Chicago Tribune, and the L.A Times have all created websites that display their online articles. 

 In this world in which we are apart of and the societies in which we make up, there is knowledge all around us. This access to knowledge is growing tenfold with all of the material and tools we have at our finger tips.

However, it is essential for any and all publications to establish one major concept: credibility. Credibility is trusting what the reader is saying because they have established a sense of credibility with their audience. This is shown through using personal experiences, providing links to reputable sites, and refraining from the use of Wikipedia. These are just a few small examples of how to establish a writer as trustworthy in the online community. 

Based on my own current experience from working in both an online publication as well as the newspaper industry, there will always be pros and cons to each side that the other side lacks. In the newspaper industry, local newspapers hold great value in the strong, personal relationship between the newspaper and the reader. You have a better sense of who is reading these articles because they're your family, your friends, and your neighbors. And there’s a comfort in that. 

The first United States newspaper, the Boston News Letter, originated on April 24, 1704. This piece of media not only discusses events in history, it is history.

Although you can share articles with this same familial audience, there’s a crucial difference. The world of online publication is a two-way, communicative street. And as a writer, that can be intimidating.  Complete strangers have the power to verbally abuse you, and many act on that capability. 

Yet, there’s also a large sense of freedom in writing online. Self-starting, entrepreneurial bloggers do not have expectations to stay within a company’s tone or set material topics. They are their own company, their own brand. They are the creators. 

Even the concept on online publication has a wider scope of freedom; publications in different topics of interest exist, from music to online magazines to home and lifestyle blogs. It’s an expansion of the newspaper, providing readers with a large variety and quantity of subjects and issues to dive into. 

Whereas in the newspaper industry, you are in a co-dependent relationship with the assembly line of co-workers; each have their own stake in contributing towards making that week’s deadline in order to get the paper out. There’s a sense of team work and camaraderie there that can’t quite be duplicated in the online world of publication. It is important to preserve that communal bond of sharing local news. It is also important to maintain a plain field for evolution in this industry, without one platform pushing out the other. 

Between 2003 and 2012, the print ad revenue in newspapers has decreased by more than 50%. Readership has also decreased between 10 and 20% over the last 15 years among all age groups; these age groups consist of individuals from the 18-24 year old bracket to ages 65 and older. 

However, with this new age of online media and the rising generation of younger readers and creators, a question comes to mind. Can we still preserve the newspaper industry of both big booming companies like the Chicago Times along with smaller publications like Southtown Newspapers or Southwest Messenger Press? Could the extension of these papers onto online platforms help to sustain this powerful medium that has informed people around the world for hundreds of years? Maybe we need to start considering newspapers in both print and online form, rather than print vs online publications.