Are Newspapers Expiring?

It seems like the inevitable doom of newspapers is approaching. The facts tell us so. According to The Washington Post, 2009 had the lowest newspaper circulation in over 70 years. It would seem to me like the bad news—that is, for print media-- will just keep coming. Is it only a matter of time before we see print news disappear? This website seems to think so.

Online news certainly seems to make sense. With the internet, information reaches consumers fast than ever. With the internet, readers can interact with one another and respond to the news with applications like blogs or twitter. Perhaps the biggest perk of reading news through the web is that it’s free to those with internet access.

Despite all this, I don’t believe the death of a news is entirely a good thing. While I certainly do enjoy reading for free, only reading online makes it pretty easy to simply not read the news. Truthfully which is more fun CNN.com or this fun game with a monkey that pops balloons? My point is that reading the news is difficult enough for our hyperactive, image-bombarded brains, and the internet only makes that job more difficult. Having the entire world wide web packaged with my news outlet allows for pretty easy distraction.

I wouldn’t really have a problem with online media if it ran the same as print media. However, in the online format, with ever changing stories, constant advertising and far more “infotainment,” as many like to call it, I feel many core news values are lost. When something appears on the front page of the newspaper, it’s important and stays there for a day. In contrast the front page of a website might change in less than an hour. Currency is important, but is it taking precedence over things like impact? It can be difficult to grasp the most valuable news when it’s changing as fast as the internet moves.

In order for newspapers to die I believe online news will have to become more profitable than print. If we had to pay for news online like we do a newspaper, would more people choose the hard copy? Many questions are left unanswered about the fate of newspapers, but to this question: Do I like newspapers? I have an answer: yes, and I hope for the sake of this cartoonist I don’t see the demise in my life time.