The end of newspapers
05/09/16 05:07
We have a nephew who has a degree in journalism. After graduating from college he traveled the wold for several years teaching English as a second language then returned to college where he earned a masters in education and obtained his certificate as a teacher. He is an energetic and engaged teacher and the school district where he serves is lucky to have him working with their students. His is only one path among many for journalism students these days, but most of those paths are distinctly different than was the case decades ago when we were students. Most journalism students of my generation spent at least a few years working at newspapers. In those days newspapers were the primary employers of journalists and working at a newspaper was an excellent way to hone one’s skills of reporting, writing and editing. The field was referred to as “the craft” and honing one’s craft was a normal part of maturing as a journalist.
These days, there simply are not enough newspaper jobs for the students who are graduating from college with journalism degrees. Our local newspaper has decreased the number of people involved in its production to the point where it no longer needs the space formerly occupied by its newsroom.
The fact that we still receive a daily newspaper in our home is a quaint practice that seems strange to our grandchildren, who have never lived in a home that collects piles of newsprint for weekly recycling.
A few years ago The American Society of Newspaper changed its name to The American Society of News. This week at its annual meeting The Newspaper Association of America, the trade group that has represented the interests of major newspaper publishers in one form or another since 1887, is going to drop from its name the word that once defined it: “Newspaper.” The new name will be the News Media Alliance.
Newspapers are disappearing from our culture. The association’s membership has dropped to about 2000 from 2700 in 2008. The big news outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and Dow Jones still have newspapers, but printed papers are small fractions of their enterprises these days.
While the number of newspapers continues to decline, there is a rise in the number of digital news organizations that are not associated with print editions. BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review are organizations that do not print newspapers yet are major providers of the news to people.
Change is the way of the world. People of my generation don’t miss the horse and buggy era. We can remember the time before televisions, computer displays and smart phones dominated our lives, and even wax nostalgic about those days, but we know that the world is not going to go back to the way it once was.
A couple of decades ago when we moved into our home nearly every house in our subdivision had a box out front for the newspaper. These days, those boxes are anomalies. I watch the delivery person making one stop on our street before getting to our house then heading up to the top of the hill for a third delivery before going on to the next street.
Frankly, it isn’t going to be too long before ours is one of the houses that doesn’t receive the delivery. It will take some adjustment because we’ve received a daily newspaper since we graduated from school and reading the paper over breakfast has become such a habit that when our delivery is missed or we are on vacation our morning routine is disrupted.
Newspapers have rarely been financed by subscriptions, however. What drives newspapers has long been advertising. Advertising rates, however, are based on circulation. As circulation drops, so does ad revenue. Although our daily paper still seems to be filled with advertisements, many advertisers are coming to the conclusion that newspaper advertising is a less effective means of getting to potential customers than online media. There are nearly 200 church and para church organizations in our city. Saturday’s issue of the newspaper contained ads for three of them.That is a big change from 20 years ago when there were fewer churches but the Saturday edition of the paper had a half page of church ads.
It is concerning, however, that along with the shift to digital news sources is a shift away from human editors and writers to digital media’s use of algorithms to determine what stories to tell. Instead of discerning what is truly news, the computer formulas track what is “trending,” that is what topics are most popular at the moment. The result can be the dissemination of false stories. Print papers, however, are not immune from these trends. As the number of people involved in production declines, print newspapers, like their digital cousins, rely increasingly on automated systems to gather the news. We have noticed articles in our print newspaper that contain confusing information, draw false conclusions and even report items that did not happen. Such stories are usually the result of the paper taking stories from other sources and including them in the printed copy.
The bottom line is that the newspaper, as we have known it, is dying. How long it takes to completely disappear is unclear. I suspect that some form of weekly paper, perhaps the Sunday edition, will persist for many years. However, it won’t be long before the daily edition will simply cease production because it doesn’t make financial sense to distribute information in that manner. It seems likely that we will cease subscribing before papers disappear entirely. The information in the print edition is simply too obsolete. We already obtain that information from other sources before it can be delivered to our home.
There was a time when we kept an unabridged dictionary near our dining table for reference during mealtime discussions. We’ve already learned to reach for our computers instead of the dictionary. The reach for a tablet instead of the newspaper isn’t that much of a stretch for our household.
And we won’t have trouble finding something to do with the time we currently invest in delivering old papers to the recycling bin.
These days, there simply are not enough newspaper jobs for the students who are graduating from college with journalism degrees. Our local newspaper has decreased the number of people involved in its production to the point where it no longer needs the space formerly occupied by its newsroom.
The fact that we still receive a daily newspaper in our home is a quaint practice that seems strange to our grandchildren, who have never lived in a home that collects piles of newsprint for weekly recycling.
A few years ago The American Society of Newspaper changed its name to The American Society of News. This week at its annual meeting The Newspaper Association of America, the trade group that has represented the interests of major newspaper publishers in one form or another since 1887, is going to drop from its name the word that once defined it: “Newspaper.” The new name will be the News Media Alliance.
Newspapers are disappearing from our culture. The association’s membership has dropped to about 2000 from 2700 in 2008. The big news outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and Dow Jones still have newspapers, but printed papers are small fractions of their enterprises these days.
While the number of newspapers continues to decline, there is a rise in the number of digital news organizations that are not associated with print editions. BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review are organizations that do not print newspapers yet are major providers of the news to people.
Change is the way of the world. People of my generation don’t miss the horse and buggy era. We can remember the time before televisions, computer displays and smart phones dominated our lives, and even wax nostalgic about those days, but we know that the world is not going to go back to the way it once was.
A couple of decades ago when we moved into our home nearly every house in our subdivision had a box out front for the newspaper. These days, those boxes are anomalies. I watch the delivery person making one stop on our street before getting to our house then heading up to the top of the hill for a third delivery before going on to the next street.
Frankly, it isn’t going to be too long before ours is one of the houses that doesn’t receive the delivery. It will take some adjustment because we’ve received a daily newspaper since we graduated from school and reading the paper over breakfast has become such a habit that when our delivery is missed or we are on vacation our morning routine is disrupted.
Newspapers have rarely been financed by subscriptions, however. What drives newspapers has long been advertising. Advertising rates, however, are based on circulation. As circulation drops, so does ad revenue. Although our daily paper still seems to be filled with advertisements, many advertisers are coming to the conclusion that newspaper advertising is a less effective means of getting to potential customers than online media. There are nearly 200 church and para church organizations in our city. Saturday’s issue of the newspaper contained ads for three of them.That is a big change from 20 years ago when there were fewer churches but the Saturday edition of the paper had a half page of church ads.
It is concerning, however, that along with the shift to digital news sources is a shift away from human editors and writers to digital media’s use of algorithms to determine what stories to tell. Instead of discerning what is truly news, the computer formulas track what is “trending,” that is what topics are most popular at the moment. The result can be the dissemination of false stories. Print papers, however, are not immune from these trends. As the number of people involved in production declines, print newspapers, like their digital cousins, rely increasingly on automated systems to gather the news. We have noticed articles in our print newspaper that contain confusing information, draw false conclusions and even report items that did not happen. Such stories are usually the result of the paper taking stories from other sources and including them in the printed copy.
The bottom line is that the newspaper, as we have known it, is dying. How long it takes to completely disappear is unclear. I suspect that some form of weekly paper, perhaps the Sunday edition, will persist for many years. However, it won’t be long before the daily edition will simply cease production because it doesn’t make financial sense to distribute information in that manner. It seems likely that we will cease subscribing before papers disappear entirely. The information in the print edition is simply too obsolete. We already obtain that information from other sources before it can be delivered to our home.
There was a time when we kept an unabridged dictionary near our dining table for reference during mealtime discussions. We’ve already learned to reach for our computers instead of the dictionary. The reach for a tablet instead of the newspaper isn’t that much of a stretch for our household.
And we won’t have trouble finding something to do with the time we currently invest in delivering old papers to the recycling bin.