The Life and Rebirth of the Newspaper

We are all curious about what is going on the world.  The newspaper started this desire because of its ability to gather news and publish daily.  In fact the newspaper became so popular that it began to publish multiple editions.  Now we have too much information thanks to 24 hours television news stations and internet news sources that can attract a much younger demographic that has caused the newspaper to start losing readership.  Small towns used to be able to have their own newspapers that would atleast be able to publish weekly but many of these papers have gone out of business.  How are we all going to get high quality news if this disease spreads?

The radio industry is one that has had to contend with both the Internet and television.  It has been able to survive thanks them changing how they do business including embracing the Internet and charging a fee to listen.  The radio industry has an advantage over the newspaper industry because it takes less brain power to listen to something rather than read something.  One thing you have to remember is that many people like to go on the Internet and read an article.  The convergence of the Internet on the radio industry has lead them to create ways to listen to their content on the Internet either via a browser, a desktop application, or a mobile application.  The newspaper industry needs to make similar strides by creating similar applications and embracing new technologies.  The iPad and the Kindle are great starting points.  The Kindle especially was built for readers because the designers wanted it to feel like you are reading off of a piece of paper not another computer screen.

The real way besides embracing new technologies is the ability to adapt to other media outlets.  Since so many people are willing to go watch a 24 hour news network, why not release stories more often during the day.  This method will increase your cost of production by hiring more reporters and editors but what you might not realize is that you do not have to print the article on paper but rather distribute digitally which is a lot cheaper.  I do realize that most of the time the cable news channels are just retelling the same stories but what says you cannot do something similar.  You could release a story at noon and if no new story is playing out at midnight, you could re-release the same story but this time you could highlight any of your users’ comments.  This is one of your edges on both the radio and television; you could be more interactive allowing your readers to come to you when it is convenient to you.

The other thing that newspapers can do that will set them apart, is the ability to be searchable.  When someone wants to learn more about how the Soviets fell apart, they will come to you because you were the people that witnessed it first hand.  While a subscription fee may not be appropriate anymore to get the daily news, but to people who want to access all your articles from the past, this is very appropriate.  Subscription fees are no longer appropriate to gather the daily news  just because more news outlets have access to this news and some of those news outlets can do it very cheap allowing them give it away for free.  Newspapers should abandon all hope in getting a subscription fee for the daily news but should instead focus on getting it for all those who need to do research on past articles and for premium news articles.  Newspapers need to hire very talented reporters who create special pieces that are only available to those with a subscription pass.  Newspapers just have to remember to give away the daily news to hook the customers.

So the changing media landscape does not have to mean the end of the newspaper but rather the start of a new type of newspaper that is paperless.  By focusing on digital content that can be distributed cheaply and creating new content more often, the newspaper will survive.  But thanks to this whole rearrangement in media, people like me can create content just as easy as the big newspapers.  Long live the paperless newspaper.