Newspapers, a dying industry?

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I have noticed over the past few months that a number of large newspapers are either going out of business or filing for bankruptcy. I’m sure this is also a problem with many of the small town newspapers too.

Personally, I have not had a subscription to a newspaper in many years. I was tired of the apparent lack of news I was seeing. More and more it seemed I was getting opinion pieces on the front page. It doesn’t matter if I agree with the opinion or not, I just wanted straight news. While I still haven’t found a place to get that, I feel I get better news coverage now, than I ever did before. I go to many different news sites on the internet. If I find that the stories I’m interested in are reported by more than one news organization, I will read multiple articles. I’ve found that most news is just regurgitated from one of a few major news sources, never a chance to get a full story there.

To my eyes, the newspaper industry lost its focus years ago. They didn’t see that they were losing customers when cable news became a mainstay for most people. They missed the internet boom of getting news to people too. The newspapers became a place to get ads and coupons. The news or opinions were no longer important to people. They could get those in other places. And along came coupon bug and other web based coupon sites. No need to wait for the Sunday edition of the newspaper for coupons.

Today I heard bits and pieces of some of the things coming from Washington, and there is some movement to bail out the Newspaper industry. My question is why. How is it important to the country. There are other news outlets, why do we need a newspaper that can’t stand on its own? I don’t like seeing jobs lost, this economy needs all the jobs it can get. I would like to see sustainable jobs. With newspapers going downhill for years (maybe even longer than auto industry), I only see bailing out newspapers as a big waste of money. If the economy had stayed healthy, I still saw the newspapers failing within the next few years. The young adults of today don’t relish the feel of a newspaper anymore. It is much easier to get your news on the go. I-phones, Blackberries, computers, televisions all do a better job reaching people today.

And of course with the new soy based inks, silly putty doesn’t do nearly as good of job producing reverse images of the comics. That was a big set back for the newspaper industry. Kids weren’t playing with newspapers anymore…. 😉

3 thoughts on “Newspapers, a dying industry?”

  1. I like reading the daily newspaper, though I don’t often have time since it comes at 5 and that’s the beginning of my busy time. Chris keeps trying to convince me to switch to the online version, but I’m old fashioned that way I guess… I just can’t bring myself to do it.

  2. I don’t think kids even read the comics page anymore. I have to admit, though I do a lot of things online I still read the local paper even though most if not all of the stories are also available at their website. Don’t ask me why as I can’t answer that one.

  3. I also see something in the paper at least once a week about someone I know, so I’m in the habit of clipping those – again, why, I don’t know.

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