There is no denying that with the price of printing and delivering papers there will be a decline in that field. I think it's difficult to picture all newspapers stopping their deliveries or stopping printing all together. With digital information taking command, there will more than likely be more newspapers that switch to an online-only format. If online news were to overtake newspapers, I believe it will take some time.
Some people still rely on the daily paper for their source of news. My family is a prime example. My parents rely primarily on reading the paper every morning and watching the news on TV at night. My grandparents, like many elderly, are even more reliant on newspapers (oops, a stereotype). Even though many people don't read newspapers, I believe they will stick around a while longer due to people like my parents and grandparents.
What does the potential end of print newspapers mean for society? Well, a number of things. If news moves online, not it won't have the availability of the print edition. To access news, people will need a computer or smart phone with internet access, when it was just a print edition, there was no other technology needed to access news. For people that don't have internet access and refuse to adopt it (there are some) it will deny them access to their "newspaper." For the people that do have access to the online edition of newspapers, they will be rewarded. Online news can be updated so it is not outdated by the evening.
Even though it may not seem like a big deal, the newspaper headline after a historic event will be missed by many. Personally, I think the front pages from historic events from things like V-Day for WWII, the Kennedy assassination (see above), or more recently 9/11 have great impact. I love looking at the old pages that my grandparents have saved throughout the years. After everything moves online what are we going to show the next generations, pages that have been saved on our long obsolete computers?
Whether people like it or not though, news is going digital. Maybe not right now, but pretty soon the newspaper will be a rarity. So for those who are old school and pick up the daily paper every morning, appreciate the newspaper smell and getting ink on your fingers, savor your paper, it's an endangered species about to go extinct.
Over all, I think that this was a really well-written blog. I think the information that you presented was good, however I think you should evenly spread your facts throughout the entire blog. The info you had on the Detroit newspaper and the Post-intelligencer good have been put in other paragraphs rather than the same one. This way you could have used these facts to back up some of your examples in later paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteI like your example of your parents and grandparents as the kind of people keeping the newspaper alive, my parents are same. Anyone from out generation has no reason for print news. All information is right at our fingertips. Even though older people may not be as computer savvy, I believe facebook is a great example of our parents and grandparents trying to learn. A lot of my friends' parents and grandparents have a Facebook. If the eledery can set up a Facebook, I definitely think they can find CNN.com.
I like your analysis and break down of how the media isn't dead, because it still in use by a few. It won't last long though, like you said it is becoming extinct.