Declining readership of newspapers is something that worries every journalist and the future of the traditional print medium is under more pressure than ever forcing new business models to be put into place. What has caused this decline and is there any light at the end of the tunnel?
Some argue that the death of print is a suicide and Electric Venom believes that readers are waking up to the possibilities of online journalism. It argues that readers who are interested in the issues no longer have to depend upon a paper to decide for them “all the news that’s fit to print”.
Traditional print media cannot compete with the interacitivty of their online counterparts. Discussion debate and argument are available raeadily with other people on many online news services. It begs to question why someone with an interest in news would bother reading a newspaper and not go online in order to scratch below the surface of a story.
A comment page on the Guardian
Falling sales results in falling revenue from both investment and advertising and many wonder how it can be possible to make money from online journalism. Subscription may be an option but Google News has started to place advertising on their pages. Online news can be profitable and newspaper bosses need to realise the window or opportunity open to them. Newspapers must realise that they too can offer online advertising to those that already advertise on paper.
Many people still prefer traditional print but there are so many arguments for why this practise will inevitably die out. You cannot carry a laptop with you everywhere you go and if you want to read your paper on the bus online news is not really a option. Hand held device the Kindle has opened up a world to world to newspapers that was never available before. Newspapers like the New York Times is available to download to the Kindle and with already well over 10,000 subscriptions at less than $14 a month. The Kindle could save newspapers once the device becomes as commonplace as an iPod.
The Future?
Could the Kindle replace the newspapers and will it be the same as simply reading off a screen? Many people blast online news for its lack of ease of reading. Decide for yourself.
