As we are all well aware, newspapers have been declining in circulation for years and their demise seems imminent. Most people seem to not view this as a big deal, as we now tend to get all of our news from either TV or the internet. We figure that if newspapers stop putting out print editions, then they'll probably just switch to an all-online format. However, this raises the question if any of the major newspapers will be able to operate entirely online.
Currently, nearly all newspapers have free online editions. Some newspapers require a subscription to access some online content but those are few and far between. If print circulation of newspapers continues to decline, I see it as inevitable that all the major newspapers will eventually require subscriptions to view their online content. And also inevitably, this will raise protests from the online community.
People will say that newspapers should just increase their online advertising rather than require subscriptions. The problem with increasing advertising is that it raises conflict of interest issues, since more and more newspapers will be reluctant to launch investigations of major companies who could also be potential advertisers. Not to mention that increased online advertising will likely be distracting. And may not even help all that much since a lot of people tend to have ad blocker installed on their browsers.
People will also declare that they'll get their news from other sources such as cable TV or blogs. First off, I can't be the only person who prefers to read the news rather than just watch. I usually check Google News every day for stories and I'll only put on CNN for background noise. There's also the fact that the entire purpose of cable news is to be sensationalistic in order to attract ratings. Cable TV generally only broadcasts stories which will attract the most rating while important, but seemingly boring stories get pushed into horrible timeslots. I prefer to be able to search online for stories which interest me and get more in-depth analysis, while cable TV will generally shorten stories to soundbites.
Meanwhile, the problem with blogs is that they usually don't have the resources for investigative journalism or even actual reporting. Usually, they're just reposts of stories from major newspapers. And they tend to be politically biased and I like my news sources to at least try to maintain neutrality.
So, if newspapers decide to make their online editions subscription-based, it'll be interesting to see how it'll affect where people get their news. Maybe they'll just accept it and shell out money for the subscription. Or maybe they'll just switch to blogs and cable TV. Hell, news stories may even become pirated in a way similar to how movie, music and TV shows are pirated over the internet. Whole sites could spring up dedicated to sharing free news stories from major newspapers, creating a whole new issue in copyright law. All in all, the affect it'll have on the public being well-informed will be enormous.
Yeah with today's technology, people seem to take the easy way out and instead of going outside to get the newspaper and sit down and read through which articles you want to read, many just choose to put on their tv in the morning as background noise or to just watch. Who knows in another 10 years what will happen with newspapers and if they'll maybe even go down more in production.
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