Does anyone read print newspapers anymore?
5 Comments Published by Nisha Chittal on Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 5:52 PM.
Do you? I don't. As avid of a news reader as I am, I can confess to not reading a single thing in print. I get everything online now, like everyone else. The big media companies are definitely feeling it -- and the impending recession is making the situation even worse.
For my dad's generation, print newspapers were an important part of everyday life. My dad still reads the Wall Street Journal every morning on the train to work and treasures it, but I think he's of a dying breed. Yesterday he was showing me some stock quotes in the WSJ and I was struck by how long it had been since I had read a print copy of anything to get the news. Especially for something as rapidly changing as stock quotes, it seemed futile to me to look at a print newspaper published only once a day, when those stocks would fluctuate constantly throughout the day and the most up-to-the-minute updates could only be found online.
Last week the New York Times, still my favorite for news, announced that it sharply reduced its dividend -- which will save the New York Times Co. about $97.8 million a year. This is after years of increasing its dividend. Some think that page by page, section by section, the NYT's influence is fading away.
PC Magazine is shutting down its print edition and going completely digital.
And did you know over half the Washington Post company's revenue comes not from WaPo or Newsweek...but from its Kaplan test prep division?
On the other hand, in July, Gawker Media got twice as many pageviews as the LA Times website. And Huffington Post has supposedly raised $15 million in capital.
AdAge questions whether print can even survive another five years -- a little pessimistic if you ask me. But then there's been so many media layoffs lately, that the blogging giants are trying to seize an opportunity by offering free blog accounts to laid-off journalists. So who knows.
One thing I do know is that mass media is changing. No one wants a one-way message from the media anymore; they want a two-way conversation that they can participate in. They want to be able to comment on news stories, they want to be able to discuss the news as it happens, they want rapid updates every minute, and they want to be environmentally friendly and save paper. I'm taking a mass media course right now, and I'm surprised by how little we have even touched upon the topic of the internet -- we've studied nearly every kind of old media, but barely even touched upon the effects of the internet on the media establishment.
What I'm interested to see next is: which big media company will actually keep up? Or will they die out and be completely replaced by internet media?
For my dad's generation, print newspapers were an important part of everyday life. My dad still reads the Wall Street Journal every morning on the train to work and treasures it, but I think he's of a dying breed. Yesterday he was showing me some stock quotes in the WSJ and I was struck by how long it had been since I had read a print copy of anything to get the news. Especially for something as rapidly changing as stock quotes, it seemed futile to me to look at a print newspaper published only once a day, when those stocks would fluctuate constantly throughout the day and the most up-to-the-minute updates could only be found online.
Last week the New York Times, still my favorite for news, announced that it sharply reduced its dividend -- which will save the New York Times Co. about $97.8 million a year. This is after years of increasing its dividend. Some think that page by page, section by section, the NYT's influence is fading away.
PC Magazine is shutting down its print edition and going completely digital.
And did you know over half the Washington Post company's revenue comes not from WaPo or Newsweek...but from its Kaplan test prep division?
On the other hand, in July, Gawker Media got twice as many pageviews as the LA Times website. And Huffington Post has supposedly raised $15 million in capital.
AdAge questions whether print can even survive another five years -- a little pessimistic if you ask me. But then there's been so many media layoffs lately, that the blogging giants are trying to seize an opportunity by offering free blog accounts to laid-off journalists. So who knows.
One thing I do know is that mass media is changing. No one wants a one-way message from the media anymore; they want a two-way conversation that they can participate in. They want to be able to comment on news stories, they want to be able to discuss the news as it happens, they want rapid updates every minute, and they want to be environmentally friendly and save paper. I'm taking a mass media course right now, and I'm surprised by how little we have even touched upon the topic of the internet -- we've studied nearly every kind of old media, but barely even touched upon the effects of the internet on the media establishment.
What I'm interested to see next is: which big media company will actually keep up? Or will they die out and be completely replaced by internet media?
Labels: journalism, newspapers, social media, technology
When I saw the NYT headline last week, "Too Much News?" I knew I was going to feel instantly at home when I clicked on the link and read the all-too-familiar stories of the people profiled in the piece..."They find themselves taking breaks at work every 15 minutes to check the latest updates, and at the end of the day, taking laptops to bed. Then they pad through darkened homes in the predawn to check on the Asian markets."
Jeez. True down to every last word, including the Asian markets part.
We certainly live in an information age. The accessibility of news in every format is incredible. I don't even have TV anymore, but I'm constantly getting news through websites, blogs, papers, text messages, Twitter, whatever. Not having information all the time is almost impossible to fathom, especially, I think, for my generation, that can't even remember life before the internet. Seriously. I was on the internet by age 6 and haven't really looked back since. This past weekend I was without internet and email for over 48 hours (not by choice!) and someone asked..."Doesn't it feel good?" It kind of felt good, but I really just wanted to check my email and see what was going on in the world.
There's even a kid mentioned in the article, who's maybe 7 years old, and he is so accustomed to his mother watching so much news that he walks around his house saying "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message."
I thought that was hilarious...until I remembered my parents telling me stories of me doing the exact same thing when I was a kid (except in my time it was Ross Perot that I was mimicking. No joke). Well, at least I'm not the only one...the New York Times has unearthed a whole collection of news junkies just lurking out there. Ha ha, and I'm sure every single one of them read and loved that article, too.
Jeez. True down to every last word, including the Asian markets part.
We certainly live in an information age. The accessibility of news in every format is incredible. I don't even have TV anymore, but I'm constantly getting news through websites, blogs, papers, text messages, Twitter, whatever. Not having information all the time is almost impossible to fathom, especially, I think, for my generation, that can't even remember life before the internet. Seriously. I was on the internet by age 6 and haven't really looked back since. This past weekend I was without internet and email for over 48 hours (not by choice!) and someone asked..."Doesn't it feel good?" It kind of felt good, but I really just wanted to check my email and see what was going on in the world.
There's even a kid mentioned in the article, who's maybe 7 years old, and he is so accustomed to his mother watching so much news that he walks around his house saying "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message."
I thought that was hilarious...until I remembered my parents telling me stories of me doing the exact same thing when I was a kid (except in my time it was Ross Perot that I was mimicking. No joke). Well, at least I'm not the only one...the New York Times has unearthed a whole collection of news junkies just lurking out there. Ha ha, and I'm sure every single one of them read and loved that article, too.
Labels: newspapers, technology
