Introduction
The internet is a great threat to the general newspapers but this is not necessarily because the papers did not envision this. In fact, the producers of print not only saw the threat from a distance but they struggled to make preparations to deal with it. in the early 1990s, they set up a number of strategies to help them accomplish this.
One of the plans was to create partnerships with firms like America online, which was a fast growing company for subscription services and had an advantage of being less hectic that the open internet. Another plan was educating the general public about the requirements of the copyright law and new payments models like micropayments were suggested.
On the other hand they could chase profits that other media including Television and radio were enjoying if they happened to be entirely supported by adverts. Another place was to convince tech firms to make technologies that restricted sharing or just pattern with them to accomplish the same purpose. there was however a contingency plan.
The print media producers would sue those who infringe and use them as teaching examples to the rest. However, unthinkable happened, sharing content was made possible and is increasing, walled sites are unpopular, digital ads reduce inefficiencies and hence profitable.
Many people dislike micropayments and they also resist education teaching them to act against their desires and old habits of advertisers and readers could not be directly transferred to the internet. Ferocious litigation could not constrain the crowds.
General Newspapers Strategies (strengths and Weaknesses)
What is being written and talked about is reducing ion volume and shorter articles are becoming shorter. There is notable fall in book sales over the past five years and magazines are fast becoming just some kind of artefacts. People are now relying on bloggers for information so that that can digest and get informed on what they feel they ought to know (Cardin, 2009, p. 19).
However, it is important to realize that behind this, there have to be some real fact finding. Somehow this report or news has to be obtained written and disseminated as they happen or immediately they happen. Many nations, the government does this. However in the modern world, people have depended on newspapers or wire services like UPI and Reuters supplying papers (Madigan, 2009, p. 67).
This offers raw news (Cardin, 2009, p. 19). Newspapers for so long have earned their revenue from ads. They have in turn used the money to pay for the acquisition of the news which we get delivered each day. However today, the internet has brought a very still competition and the newspapers are getting bankrupt (Collis et al, 2009, p. 23).
As many people now turn to the internet for faster and instant news, the revenue from adverts is dropping in the newspapers. Subscription has also fallen and some papers have as well filed for bankruptcy, e.g. Tribune Corporation. Many towns now face the risk of missing daily newspapers altogether and its evident that employment on the industry has fallen almost to the levels of 1950s (Papathanassopoulos, S. 2001 p. 19).
There are some strong opinions regarding what newspapers can and ought to do so as to remain viable even as the internet continue to increase and make communication complex and very fluid (Collis et al, 2009, p. 23).
The way to go for the newspapers is to provide the detailed facts that blogs and short articles on the internet do not provide (Pickard et al, 2009, p. 23). This also means that the newspaper reporting has to get investigative as an essential mission for good reporting. This means providing reporting that is beyond simple news which focuses less on what happened but dwell more on the meaning of it (McIntyre, 2009, p. 34).
Internet can be good in information to the public of what happened for instance the outcomes of presidential elections. However, it is not good in interpreting what that means (Hoffman, 2006, p. 46).
There is a lot of screaming on the internet section including blogs and chartrooms but there is not so much information at such sites as they do not gibe measured explanations and critical analyses which requires experience of reporters and correspondents to do (McIntyre, 2009, p. 34). The newspapers should be worries about quality and not the volume of circulations so as to survive in the business (Hoffman, 2006, p. 46).
This means they need to find who is still reading it and rather than giving shorter articles, they need to get smarter and give meatier articles with better opinion pieces and analyses in a daily magazine rather than daily newspapers (McIntyre, 2009, p. 34).
Rather than printing in broadsheets newspapers have to print in tabloids and present them as daily magazines (Kirchhoff, 2009, p. 16). The tabloid is more congenial to the people that the bigger sheets.
It is convenient and easy to hold rather than looking at a full page and its more adoptable to various environments of reading that are strenuous (Morton, 2009, p. 45). The tabloid is so efficient became the future daily magazine would not need to record ephemera like baseball score, market tables among other as they would all over the internet (Yardley, 2008, para. 56).
Internet Newspaper Strengths
For now the major challenge that is facing print newspaper is to cling onto the lucrative market while creating new means of making money and expanding on online market where they get free content (Morton, 2009, p. 45). Form the year 2001 to 2008, circulation of print newspaper declined from 13.5% to 17.5% for the Sunday papers.
The average daily newspaper print decreased from 13% to 7% in a period of six months from March 2009. While print circulation falls, the internet readership is increasing and there is over 73 million people visiting the US newspaper sites every month and the trend is increasing (McIntyre, 2009, p. 34).
Furthermore, the online newspaper sites are attracting readers from all over the world and it is no longer a target for local community or cities. This way, the newspapers are facing a challenge to address local issues but still win the taste of outsiders who may not actually be interested in local news of another city like spills in Baltimore (Morton, 2009, p. 45).
Executives in the newspaper industries have indicated that readership on the internet is complex as interests and preferences keep changing. The demand has really changed and most people are only seeking for general information which includes sports, businesses, entertainment and national news (Berman et al, 2008, p. 6).
Editors have been doing this job but the internet has changed this. Sites like yahoo and Google have taken up this job and they are making use of sophisticated computer programs which are able to automatically compile the links to the content in the print news, blogs and various sources across the globe (Berman et al, 2008, p. 6).
Interdependence
Whereas the future of communication and reporting is basically going online, there is still great interdependence that can is required between print and online reporting. Many of the new media investments depend partly on the print adverts to gain revenues (Berman et al, 2008, p. 6). For instance, the Political news reported in the Politico make over 50% of the ads revenue.
This is in spite the news of having many online readers. Huffington post and other aggregators like Drudge report depend on links for information from the print newspaper (Kirchhoff, 2009, p. 21). Coming print and website can produce a very potent reach to a paper. Internet has clearly interrupted habits of readers and advertisers in a manner that the ad-supported reporting is collapsing.
Conclusion
The newspaper industry is facing serious problem in terms of financial crisis. The adverts revenues have plunged owing to the bad economic times. readership has changed to online as consumers are now using internet often and can access free content. Main newspapers firms are now facing heavy debts. Several newspaper chains have filed for bankruptcy.
As these problems increase, one more serious concern is rising. This rapid decline of the newspaper industry is having a grave impact on the social lives people. There are very few reporters currently in the industry. Though print is declining and losing to the internet, the net does not have the resources and experience that the print newspapers have.
Reference List
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Collis, D., Peter, O. & Mary, F. 2009. The Newspaper Industry in Crisis, Harvard Business School, Case Study # N2-709-463, March 11, 2009.
Hoffman, L.H. 2006. Is Internet content different after all? A content analysis of mobilizing information in online and print newspapers, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, pp 46.
Kirchhoff, S.M. 2009. The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition, Congressional Research Service report for Congress, p 3-23.
Madigan, C. 2009. 30: the collapse of the great American newspaper. Chicago; Ivan R. Dee.
McIntyre, K. 2009. “Death of Newspapers Does Not Mean the End of Journalism,” U.S. News and World Report, May 8, 2009, pp 34.
Morton, J. 2009. “Not Dead Yet,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2009 issue.
Papathanassopoulos, S. 2001. The Decline of Newspapers: the case of the Greek press, London; Taylor & Francis group.
Pickard, V. Josh, S. & Craig, A. 2009. Saving The News: Toward A National Journalism Strategy. Free Press.
Yardley, J. 2008. Read All About It, The Journal Of American Enterprise Institute, Web.