Newspapers are disappearing, but don't panic.

The demise of newspapers isn’t new information. “The decline and ultimately the demise of newspapers has been an ongoing theme since the emergence of the radio.” Then came TV, full of more news and now even 24-hour news channels! Our society is definitely not news deprived.

If you haven’t noticed, people in the U.S. love technology. Have you ever seen the crowds lining up at the Apple store? Maybe not everyone can afford personal Internet access, but even the public library provides Internet. For college students like me it’s really easy to get on the Internet at school.

A lot of today’s younger generation may not even know what it’s like to hold a newspaper in their hands. Holding a tiny digital newspaper is quite common though thanks to devices like the iPhone and the NYTimes app. Online news is immediate and people like to know what’s going on at all times.

The immediacy of news from online news sources is a plus, but fact checking may not be as much of a priority. This isn’t a problem though. From real news sources like the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, journalists have always been dealing with quick deadlines so deadlines for online sources aren’t new. Non-print news sources can also be updated frequently, so mistakes can be corrected promptly.

Citizens need to be informed in a democracy; with news coming from TV, radio and Internet this isn’t a problem even if print newspapers are declining. Better yet, citizens can be part of the news themselves! Blogs are popping up everywhere; you don’t need to be a professional journalist to start one and everyone’s opinion is being heard.

Don’t like what you see on a blog? Comment! Let the blogger know what you think, and start a discussion with other people about topics. You can’t really do that when reading a print newspaper, unless perhaps you are having a debate with someone who is reading the newspaper with you.

Newspaper is an important part of our culture, so it will hold on for as long as it can. But who says saving some trees by printing less paper is a bad thing? News is readily available all around us, which may cause even more citizens to be informed rather than only newspaper subscribers.

Newspapers may be dying, but the news is booming.

-Lauren Krueger