transition from print to online news sources
August 27, 2007
I like this very portion of the internet, I like the interaction but I hope newspapers never die. I still prefer to get my news in print, still easier to carry and read.
Sign me lifetime subscriber to ink stained hands.
LHC, what do you think of the ability for readers to comment and interact on articles at most online news sites (e.g. Wash Post, USAToday, CNN.com, DCSki, etc.)? Creates some annoying drivel at times, but keeps people reading I guess. Some sites even permit emailing comments directly to article authors.
Here is the crux of the problem in excerpts from CNNMoney story on Post:
CEO Donald Graham has made the paper's digital business his uppermost priority. "If Internet advertising revenues don't continue to grow fast," he says, "I think the future of the newspaper business will be very challenging. The Web site simply has to come through."
The problem facing Graham is easy to understand but hard to solve. The pillars of the Post, revenues from display and classified advertising, are declining faster than its Internet business is growing. For the first five months of 2007, total ad sales, including print and online, are down by 12 percent. Other newspapers, too, are reporting sharper drops in ad revenue lately than anyone in the business had expected...
What lies ahead for the Post seems to be a long and painful transition from print - so important to local advertisers that the newspaper could raise prices almost at will - to the Internet, where competition for readers and advertisers is brutal. The best evidence of the difference is the fact that advertisers paid about $573 million last year to reach readers of the company's newspapers, predominantly the 673,900 daily and 937,700 Sunday subscribers to the Post. Advertisers paid only about $103 million to reach the eight million unique visitors to the Post's Web sites each month.
How many now buy a newspaper primarily for the ads and get their news info primarily from internet or tv?
JimK,
What I find disconcerting is how many young people seem to get their news from things like the Daily Show.
JK, I get my news in print. I have no experience with online interactive news. My internet time is spent reading and interacting with snowsports enthusiast. I've e-mailed local reporters, e-mail letters to the editor, that's about it.
I understand the problems that newspapers face, I read about it all the time in my local paper. I support newsprint with my yearly subscription. When there is something in print that I want to share online, I post links to their site. That's the only time I go to a newspaper's web site.
Same with Fox News. A bunch of right wing wind bags offering opinions rather than actual news.
Most folks are not going to read more than a page of text on the internet, thus they will never get any indeth information. All you'll get is snipets and tidbits of information.
I can't imagine a Sunday without the Sunday paper. The Generation X'ers, from my experience, seem to think everything is better if it digital. And I don't think they understand what we'll loose if newspapers shut down. Most Gen X'ers don't have a clue what is going on locally since they don't read the local news. The newspaper is the primary source of local news which provides an important community service. Don't get me wrong, I find the internet to be very usefull and I probably would not use the classified ads in the newspaper, which is where the internet comes in useful. If our attention spans are not long enough to digest more than a page of text, our civilization is doomed.
