All the major newspapers have already shifted to a smaller broadsheet. Transport and printing costs are skyrocketing, a big hit on the national newspapers with geographically diverse readerships. Here in Washington, the Wash. Post is also facing increasing pressure from the unions that print and ship its issues. Major metropolitan markets are also most likely to have a strong media presence on the Internet too, which supplants the value of newspaper editorials and columns. Already the Internet has totally supplanted the newspaper as a source for classifieds and personals.

For the tenuous economic viability of a printed paper, just look at the Washington Post. It’s interest in Kaplan Test Prep is basically subsidizing the print edition.

Also, regarding the numeral statistic shared of 89%, that was a typo, wasn’t it? I agree w/ Minnesotan Alex. I would feel more comfortable with the number 99.89%.

Online, you have both news and forum, unbundled, combined, mixed and infinitely remixed. The larger the forum (a good thing) the less efficient is the forum (not necessarily a bad thing).

Online, depending on your level of competance and efficiency, you can navigate away from the bullsh**ters with more or less ease.

Whereas with hardcopy, you have less news, smaller forum (no comparison here really), and, in a peculiar way, you are less likely to navigate away from the reknowned and longstanding bullsh**t of which there has never been a shortage.

Us ink-stained wretches will survive, in some fashion and form, forever, so, all your BSers, quit cher bitchin.

After the VERY heavy-handed way the New York Times egged on the protest against Augusta National Golf Club in early 2003 and the fiasco of the Jayson Blair scandal that forced Editor-in-Chief Howell Raines out, you’d think newspapers across the country would get the message and leave the editorializing to the Editorial/Commentary pages. But they didn’t, and the subsequent Rathergate scandal (of which the Times played a tangental role) soured a lot of people on the mass media in general.

In short, Alvin Toffler’s prophetic vision of the de-massified media he predicted way back in 1979 in The Third Wave is now proving to be devestating to newspapers in general because new media outlets are taking away the two biggest sources of newspaper revenue, namely advertisements and classified ads.

Journalists have always thought they were immune to market conditions because “they are defending democracy”. Little did they realize their journalism was being subsidized by classified ads (which had accounted for about 30-40% of all newspaper income until recently).

There will always be a market for news printed on paper, but that market is shrinking.

Look to what the Tribune company is going to start doing with their papers. If it even looks like that model will be a financial success in a couple of years, it will quickly become the new standard in the newspaper industry….and papers will be different.

And the internet lacks credibility? By that logic newspapers lack credibility because of the Weekly World News.

I have more to say on the subject at whapwhap.com.

As an adult, I have found I can read a newspaper far faster than I can read the web, because I was already a fast reader.

Web pages sure take a long time to load, and so it takes longer to read than a newspaper.

The newpaper stays put if I get interrupted, and I can return to it later.
Web pages disappear.

Gary said: What about the smell of “newsprint”? It is a visceral connection with news….Can you get that from the internet…sound bytes.

Oh, and what about the ink on your hands, that transfers to your light-colored clothes before you can wash it off?

When people say the newspaper business is dead, I think they are really saying the newspaper business is not a growth business anymore. And the weasels of Wall Street do not like businesses that are not a growth business, unless they are short-sellers.

On the other hand, I hear my step daughters talking all the time about “what’s really going on in the world cause of what they read on the web”…jjeeeezzzz. If it’s on the web it’s gotta be true..right!!

I 100% agree I have meetings with bull****ers all the time who tell us why we should spend thousands on advertising on there websites yet our own newspaper advers are consistantly producing more visitors and better footfall time and time again.

I would never stop our press ads and I think its now more of a Balance of all media that we have to try to achieve and thus best distribute our budget accross all advertising sources.

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