The newspaper industry has been listed as one of the top 10 shrinking industries in 2011(Izzo, 2011). A survey conducted by Tyler Marshall of the Pew Research Center in 2008 among 259 newspapers revealed that 59% of newspapers had reduced their full time news staff due to financial concerns. (Journalism.org, 2008) Is the newspaper industry about to die? This has been the question among economist. Several factors are attributed to the falling industry especially during the rapid technological advances that evolved during the 21st century. Less and less people are stopping by newspaper stands to get their get the latest news.
One major factor attributed to the decrease in the computer industry is because of the emergence of the internet and the onset of several new technologies that allows people to gain access to information almost instantly. Most people want to be well updated of events and news. The tendency is that they rely on the news found online for faster access to it rather than wait for the next day for the news to be printed on newspapers. By switching to online newspapers, people are saving some money because instead of buying them, they just have to have access to the internet and they would be able to read news from everywhere even with the mobile devices. The switch to online newspapers also seems to have an environmental friendly effect due to the decrease in the number of papers used for publication of the papers.
Although, switching to online newspapers seem to be the trend nowadays, Ben Parr says that the newspaper industry is not really dying. There is only a change in the newspaper model. That is the content of newspapers is shifting from foreign and national news to local news. Parr says that for the newspapers to keep on surviving, they have to change their newspaper model to focus on local community news. He argues that people tend to be interested on the things that are happening around their community which are not usually found on the internet. Big national and foreign news can be easily found on the internet. Newspapers need to narrow down their topics to attract their readers rather than compete with what can already be found on the internet. (Parr, 2010)
Works Cited
Izzo, Phil (2011). “Top 10 Dying Industries”. Real Time Economics. WallStreetJournal.com. Web. 28 Mar 2011 < http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/03/28/top-10-dying-industries/>
Journalism.org (2008). “The Changing Newsroom”. Journalism.org. Web. 21 Jul 2008
Parr, Ben (2010). “The Dire State of the Newspaper Industry”. Mashable.com. Web. 26 Mar 2010. < http://mashable.com/2010/03/26/the-dire-state-of-the-newspaper-industry-stats/>
