The Controversy Over The Decline Of Newspapers

Clay Shirky who wrote Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (1993) argues that society doesn’t need newspapers society needs journalism to save society. Shirky supports this argument by giving a historical background to the problems newspapers face and how the problems have developed over time and the solutions society has came up with. The blogger concludes that in order for journalism to go farther new models must be created in place of past molds. Shirky directs this blog toward the current and future generations in attempt to motivate new models and methods of journalism.

<br>Newspapers combat individualism by allowing numerous readers to be exposed to the same thoughts and ideas. There is a shared relationship between newspapers and associations: newspapers aid in the formation of associations, and associations use newspapers as a means of communicating their thoughts and ideas. When there is a notion shared by many individuals, but not

Newspapers and other forms of news are very vital communication methods in the world today. The goal of news is to sell us their ideas by being biased and talking about how their idea is best. News can give us biased information although, the viewer could do further research on the

A newspaper would show future generations what was going on in the world and what was important at the time.

In chapter one, Wattenberg discusses the declining trends of Americans who regularly read newspapers between the 1960’s and present day. This can be attributed the aging patterns among generations who frequently read newspapers as well as with the use of technology rising. Reading the newspaper is a habit that either is or is not developed by the time one reaches voting age. With this, newspapers have become an older generation’s primary source of information, however, are still the best source for political matters. Younger generations tend to be more computer literate and have grown up with television and media more accessible to them than the previous generation. These trends not only reflect in American culture, but in other countries

The “roots” of bias in the media date back to the nineteenth century, and criticism about bias partly reflects a controversial idea about what exactly is the media’s role and purpose. Newspapers and television alike are suppose to exist to relay objective, factual information gathered and communicated by journalists and reporters.

I do not know about you, but our baby boomers are the most known for still reading the newspaper only because a lot of them still cannot adapt to the computerized world. Citizens that are somewhat uneducated, unemployed, live in rural areas, new to the area, younger than 20 or older than 60, have isolated themselves from social activities and social communications, and are strongly committed to a specific political party (Wanta & Yu-Wei & Yi-Chen, 1995). That information still fits to this day. The most interesting part is that the ones who really read the newspapers are the business people. For instance, “The Wall Street Journal is read by people who run the country, the Washington Post is read by people who think they run the

The focus of the workshop was newspapers and their content such as reports and editorials. We identified the editorial line of a newspaper and looked at how the editorial is a letter written by the editor and how it can demonstrate different opinions. We looked at letters to the editor and how they were used as primary sources. We discovered as they are written by readers discussing issues, they help provide a useful insight on people’s concerns. We debated the benefits of newspapers such as that they give us a snapshot of peoples perceptions at the time. Limitation of using newspapers are that they are biased and generally contain propaganda.

He starts going into the tv channels we watch, “Fifteen years ago, cable channels like TLC…, Bravo, and the History channel...promised to add texture and and information to the blighted tv landscape. Now these networks run shows about marrying people based on how well they kiss”. These are great examples on how tv channels that are now seen as “trash tv” at one point used to be educational and informative. Another example he used was, “...newspapers won Pulitzer prizes for telling us things we didn’t want to hear. We’ve responded by not buying newspapers anymore”. He’s pointing out to the audience that the newspapers know what they’re doing reporting information the reader needs to know and even award winning for doing their job well but as society declines intellectually so does the popularity of informative newspapers.

Jerkiewicz, who worked in the newspaper business for 15 years, said the subscriptions have fallen drastically. In 1995 the newspaper has about 24,000 copies in circulation, but in 2010, only has 9,000 copies in circulation. The readers however, had not quit reading the news, but had turned to online sources. He adds that magazines and newspapers should have a strong digital marketing plan. He thinks that traditional printing will continue to decline, but will never die out. There will still be a market, but it will just be smaller than it is now. He says that Kindle had not run print books out of business, and it never will. He adds that printing is so cheap now that printers are going out of business because falling subscription levels are leading to

The early 1900’s could be called the consolidation era as technological changes and competition for advertising dollars increased the competitive drive for circulation numbers. In response to these changes, many newspaper chains grew as smaller newspapers were gobbled up and absorbed into the chains or became obsolete. Complementing the glitz of the roaring twenties, a new form of journalism emerged that appealed to a different type of reader with its illustrious smaller size. But, as economic conditions worsened into the 1930’s, circulation increased while revenues did not. This is mostly due to advertising dollars being split between radio and television as both gained in popularity. By 1945, newspapers had declined to their lowest and continued to drop further alongside continued consolidation efforts into the 1970’s. While daily circulation declined, chains and printing expenses grew. The closer we got to the turn of the century and the digital age, readership dropped significantly as young readers pursued other options for news (Dominick, 2013).

Opportunity is the key word for the newspaper industry right now. According to experts, neither digital advertisement revenues nor paywall subscriptions are the answer. Innovation needs to be present in order to define the future of the industry. For example, some added value needs to be present to merit the payment for content that was previously free or can be found using numerous substitute products free of charge.

The newspaper industry is undergoing a radical change in three primary areas caused by technology. First, the underlying two-sided business model is changing. With the Advent of internet, news content is easily and freely available from various sources but lacks quality journalism and credibility. Revenues from online advertising are not large enough to compensate for decline in revenues from print advertising &amp; subscription. Newspaper industry is experiencing new realm of new content delivery and in process of understanding and establishing sustainable sources and

Unlike the TV news, newspaper are portable and has no time limited, this has the advantages that people can read them whenever they want. But I believe that getting news from TVs is due to its efficiency, convenience and easy understanding is a lot better than just reading the

The belief that journalism is in decline has triggered major alarms, because society needs an informational environment that is easily available to all citizens such as newspapers. There is a large body of journalist that suggests that if television has taken over from the press as our main source of news this may limit our capacity to learn about public affairs; newspapers are believed to be far more effective than television at conveying detailed information necessary to understand complex and detailed issues. There is also widespread concern that if journalism fails as a profession it will not be able to reach large sections of the community, particularly younger or less educated readers. This may reinforce a growing gap among citizens between the information that they receive.