According to the article “End Times” on theatlantic.com by Michael Hirschorn, The New York Times could face its demise this May if it does not receive a bailout of some sort. Likely The Times will receive its bailout because of the prestige associated with the paper but the fact that one of America’s most notable publications has not been able to weather the transition to new media does not forecast a good future for the rest of the country’s smaller papers.
I found another article with a more optimistic prediction for the death of old media. Robert Andrews’s “Death of Old Media Exaggerated, They Have At Least Five Years Left” says it all in the title. He also emphasizes that people over 50 will sustain old media. I see a lot of truth to is claims because my Grandma still doesn’t own a computer and loves to go through her daily newspaper and my Dad still gets his news from print newspaper as well.
Hirschorn also mentioned a concern about the lack of respect for trained journalists in today’s era of citizen journalism. This issue resonated with me because as more and more papers go under people will look exclusively to the Internet for their news. Articles in the paper have more credibility because it is a given that a qualified writer submitted work to an editor who placed the article in a paper whose reputation lies on the truthfulness and accuracy of that article. On line is an entirely different ball game. Running a paper is expensive and people need credentials or at least money to hire people to start and maintain a paper. Anybody can start a website and post “newsworthy” information.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-death-of-old-media-exaggerated-they-have-at-least-five-years-left/
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times
Great insight and good research Laine. You bring up a good point about the older generation and their affection for newspapers. Unfortunately, those over 50 won't be here forever.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the lack of credibility with certain online sources. That is my biggest concern with where people get their news. Some people skip over the vetted news stories to read something from Sean Hannity or Michael Moore. That's not only not good for our profession, but potentially devastating for our country.
So what do we do next?
I, personally, believe that the burgeoning decline of print media is very real and very urgent. Yes, people above 50 may know and love the print version of their favorite newspapers, but what happens when they're gone? I feel as though the future of print journalism depends upon the habits and tendencies of our generation - and right now, it's not looking good. From my experience, and even my own personal tendencies, I believe that people our age would rather look things up quickly on the internet before resorting to the print version, and, even when they do look at the newspapers, they don't even read entire articles. I believe the big news corporations such as the Times Co. need to pioneer this change and be ahead of the curve to ensure that bloggers and inexperienced journalists don't take over. Big news corporations need to completely revamp their image and, as a result, get Americans to think of them as their one and only source of news and "trusted friend" once again.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the Times' trouble not boding well for smaller papers. I think this is true of smaller metro papers (AJC for instance) but not necessarily true of even smaller papers. Niche publications like the Atlanta Business Chronicle are doing better than ever by meeting a small, targeted demographic appealing to advertisers. Perhaps the era of massive papers covering large geographic regions will give way to smaller dailies and niche publications.
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