Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

Print media, namely newspapers, has been in a considerable state of decline over the past fifteen years.  Since the rise of easily accessible online news sources.  While the idea of widely accessible, and often times free news is a excellent theory, it has been slowly but surely threatening the validity of print newspapers.  This threat is including but not limited to, the New York Times.  While the New York Times is not the only print news source in crisis, it is one of the most well known.  Considering this publication is one of the largest and well known newspapers in the United States, I will focus on the troubles it has faced in the past few years.

When it comes down to brass tax, it's all about the money.  Newspapers are not free, and like anything, you pay to get the information provided.  While the price varies, all newspapers aim to be affordable to the largest demographic in the hopes of upping their readership.  Even though we pay for newspapers, according to the movie about the New York Times entitled "Page One: Inside the New York Times", the profit margins for the company remains largely on the shoulders of advertising space.  Advertising, unfortunately, is where the for the Times, problems arise.

Online news sources reach such a massive and diverse audience that advertisers have been taking advantage of the endless opportunities of the worldwide web.  While readers of the New York Times print edition have been becoming increasingly disillusioned with the idea of print news, the masses online will only continue to take advantage of free information on the web.  From an economic perspective it is impossible to deny that the advertisers are making the logical choice.

This is not to say that the New York Times will cease to exist, in fact, if anything it is simply part of the evolution of the company.  If the company can manage to change with the times, they can continue to reach massive audiences and remain a relevant source of information.  The New York times has a website which offers free news, but also advertising space.  This space helps keep the site up and running.  Is it enough?  I wouldn't know the exact financial numbers, but I do know that the company has been forced make employee cut-backs since 2009.

The big question facing consumers today is, why buy the newspaper?  Today people can easily go online and for free access very similar if not the same news stories they could find in the newspapers.  As a matter of fact, they can go and within minutes check five or six different news sources without paying a dime.  All this isn't even mentioning the green benefit to the demise of print news.  While much of the newspaper is recycled, there is no waste over checking the internet, so what is the downside?

In my opinion the fear of a paperless society is driven by sales oriented businesses who are clinging to an archaic archetype of what they THINK society should be like.  In reality, why do we need print newspapers?  What is the world gaining by having the print aspect as opposed to or in addition to online?  I'm not implying that total eradication is in the best interest of society, but if one or two of the big companies were to become completely online, it would not be the end of the world.


The fact, wether unfortunate or not is that print news may very well be on it's way out the door.  Regardless of the fact that it's been around for centuries, something more efficient has come about and people are bound to gravitate towards whatever is easiest (and cheapest).