Are we Currently Watching the Death of Newspapers or the Re-invention of the Print Industry?

I was asked an interesting question this week; are we currently watching the death of newspapers or the re-invention of the print industry? What do you think? There are different metrics we can use to attempt to quantify the current level of success achieved by newsrooms across the country as a whole. We can look at newspaper sales, we can look at customer satisfaction surveys and we can even speak about our own personal accounts and opinions. The Pew Center is a think tank that compiles data regarding trends and attitudes towards many different facets of life. They are a non-partisan organization that has done some of the work for us. "More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes,” including 60% who say they do so often". (Shearer, 2021) Eighty-six percent is a staggering number. To put it into better context, television was 68%, radio was 50% and print was the low man on the totem pole coming in at 32%.

I am one of the 86 percent of people who would rather get their news from some form of digital media. However, the feel of a good book has not escaped me. Digital platforms delivering news to me via iPad is a much more attractive option than toting around a bulky, noisy newspaper. We can’t forget about the convenience factor enjoyed by those on digital media that no longer have to physically go to the store to get their news fix for the day. Convenience isn’t the only edge digital media has over print, there is also speed. The digital platforms can update stories and put them out almost immediately which allows the user to stay abreast of everything going on in the world. We can see who the Kardashians are dating in the morning and find out about the break-up when it happens later in the afternoon.

There are also environmentally positive reasons for going digital over paper. We can save a lot of trees. Deforestation is happening at an increasingly alarming rate and newspapers add to the need for the chopping down of these trees. Also, newspapers are taking up increasingly large amounts of space in landfills and do not decompose as fast as you might think. “One of the things that decomposes very slowly - newspaper - takes up about 50 percent of landfill space.” (Guner, 2001)

The industry is evolving as everything must for survival of the species. Newsrooms have to adapt to avoid extinction but as it currently stands, this appears to be the death of the newspaper.

 

References

Shearer, Elisa. 2021. More Than Eight-In-Ten Americans Get News from Digital Devices. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/12/more-than-eight-in-ten-americans-get-news-from-digital-devices/ (Links to an external site.). Accessed on August 21, 2022.

Guner, Ayse. 2001. Landfills filling up, recycling needs to increase, studies find. The Arizona Wildcat Daily Online. https://wc.arizona.edu/papers/94/141/01_2_m.html#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20things%20that%20decomposes%20very%20slowly,article%20he%20wrote%20for%20Scientific%20American%20Discovering%20Archaeology. Accessed on August 21, 2022.


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