Cibbuano
charlesThe problem with newspapers
:
There's been a long, painful last hurrah for the traditional newspaper... with the advancement of online news journalism, your mom-and-pops newspaper, read in the morning at the breakfast table and on the train, has face dire competition.
After all, if something really incredible happens, what are you more likely to do: go online and read about it right now, turn on the TV, or wait till tomorrow morning for the news to come in the paper?
Online news beats TV when you factor in the added depth that's possible, allowing you to probe the subject even further. And while there have been questions about reliability and reputation, the growth of the industry has sorted those issues out quite nicely.
The successful newspapers have cleverly reoriented themselves as a print-and-internet news service - last year, The New York Times made their entire archive free to the public, relying on advertising alone. It's a fantastic move, and it's had an effect, with netizens browsing through their archives, linking to interesting articles.
The Rogue Columnist has a fantastic article on the real problem with newspapers, and why it's time to let go:
"The creation of monopoly markets and, through consolidation, cartels of newspaper ownership... Divorced from the imperatives of real competition, monopolies easily slip into a self-centered world of bureaucratic conformity and a desire to protect the status quo."
Tell me about it... my hometown paper was absorbed by a media cartel in Canada, which reformatted the look of the paper to match the national titles. The idea was, probably, to force consumers to change their idea of how a newspaper 'should' look, but it had the net effect of losing identity.
"Consolidation of newspapers into large, publicly held companies. This removed newspapers from their communities and killed a sense of holding a public trust. And it left them at the mercy of Wall Street. Newspaper executives promised returns that are nearly impossible for any (legal) entity to sustain year after year."
Newspapers used to be a place to read about the community and feel like you were in touch. Once they were turned into faceless corporations, they only had time for big advertisers. Who feels part of that community now?
Read the rest of the article - it's a good read.
Personally, I don't find the decline of traditional media to be a bad thing... instead, I think the environment has changed, and those that can't change, must die. Cruel, but true.
After all, if something really incredible happens, what are you more likely to do: go online and read about it right now, turn on the TV, or wait till tomorrow morning for the news to come in the paper?
Online news beats TV when you factor in the added depth that's possible, allowing you to probe the subject even further. And while there have been questions about reliability and reputation, the growth of the industry has sorted those issues out quite nicely.
The successful newspapers have cleverly reoriented themselves as a print-and-internet news service - last year, The New York Times made their entire archive free to the public, relying on advertising alone. It's a fantastic move, and it's had an effect, with netizens browsing through their archives, linking to interesting articles.
The Rogue Columnist has a fantastic article on the real problem with newspapers, and why it's time to let go:
"The creation of monopoly markets and, through consolidation, cartels of newspaper ownership... Divorced from the imperatives of real competition, monopolies easily slip into a self-centered world of bureaucratic conformity and a desire to protect the status quo."
Tell me about it... my hometown paper was absorbed by a media cartel in Canada, which reformatted the look of the paper to match the national titles. The idea was, probably, to force consumers to change their idea of how a newspaper 'should' look, but it had the net effect of losing identity.
"Consolidation of newspapers into large, publicly held companies. This removed newspapers from their communities and killed a sense of holding a public trust. And it left them at the mercy of Wall Street. Newspaper executives promised returns that are nearly impossible for any (legal) entity to sustain year after year."
Newspapers used to be a place to read about the community and feel like you were in touch. Once they were turned into faceless corporations, they only had time for big advertisers. Who feels part of that community now?
Read the rest of the article - it's a good read.
Personally, I don't find the decline of traditional media to be a bad thing... instead, I think the environment has changed, and those that can't change, must die. Cruel, but true.
