Newspapers are not dead yet

**gracehjs** · 17 March 2013, 02:42 PM

A few weeks ago the LA Times stopped printing the TV schedule in their Calendar section. Your options were to go on line or buy their TV magazine. Today, I see that the paper listings are back, I guess dropping them did not go down well?

**Cloud** · 17 March 2013, 03:00 PM

I saw an advert for an indian 24 hour news channel where a customer goes into a cafe and sees the owner wiping his tv with that days newspaper, the customer asks why he did that and the owner says that the newspaper is yesterdays news, for the latest news you have to watch tv or use the internet.

So the question is show newspapers survive for the sake of tradition? I guess like everything else the world has to move on, what is the reason to read a newspaper, it certainly doesn't do one's pocket or the environment any good, and that's coming from a printer.

**handrawn** · 17 March 2013, 03:09 PM

there is a lot more in a newspaper [that is worth buying] than just news [in some there is no news at all].... and it depends how and where you want to read - I can read, for example, the Telegraph far faster in print than i could ever do by navigating endlessly round their website...

**Cloud** · 17 March 2013, 04:14 PM

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing better than sitting down on a sunday to read the times but we have to be realists about this, they simply will not exist in a few years time, just as many hundreds of magazines have ceased to exist, and they had nothing to do with being current with the latest news. We went from designing for 9 magazines in 1998 to zero today, many many magazine publishers have closed down with the loss of thousands of jobs in the printing industry but that is a simple fact of life, whether we like it or not we now live on the internet, from internet banking to online shopping to news to arranging our social lives online.

Many of the great columnists have now moved to exclusively being internet based, you just have to look at some of the visitor numbers for their blogs to see that. Newspaper publishers have realised this and have some great websites, a case in point is the incredible bbc news site; upto the minute information from around the world plus great columns on everything from health and travel, to beauty to business to tech. I sometimes visit the sun's website (God forgive me) and it seems that some of their articles are exclusive to the printed edition and it would seem that they have to give people a reason to buy the paper to justify it's existence.

Newspapers have had a great run but there simply is no reason for them to exist now, except as I say for tradition and emotional reasons.

**gwpriester** · 17 March 2013, 04:35 PM

The sad part about all of this is that fewer and fewer very large corporations own more and more of the available media.

Once great papers like the New York Times, and to a lesser degree, the LA Times, and the other major newspapers are doing less real reporting. Less investigative reporting. They are relying more and more on PR releases coming from both professional PR outfits, and spin provided by various government entities which they publish as new.

The really excellent columnists are disappearing. Rich and Herbert are two excellent former NY Times writers who "left" to pursue other interests.

**pauland** · 17 March 2013, 04:45 PM

My son is currently training to be a journalist. We don't buy newspapers any more and haven't done for a few years now.

One of the silly problems used to be getting a paper delivered after leaving for work, and more recently the major stories are already available online or on TV the day before the paper arrives.

I still buy some magazines, but they're having trouble now.

**angelize** · 17 March 2013, 05:51 PM

As someone who still tries to make a living producing a printed publication, it's not just the readers going to the internet but even more importantly the advertisers are too! So many businesses prefer to advertise via social media and their own sites than a printed ad.

**Cloud** · 17 March 2013, 09:34 PM

We have a number of free local magazines, a couple of them a worth a read but whereas it used to be 30% adverts to 70% content it is now 70% adverts, not because there is nothing to report on but because the publishers have had to drop their advert prices so much that they now need to pack as many as they can just to break even, in fact there are many popping up with just adverts. As for social media adverts; they simply do not work, facebook have tried every trick in the book to get people to click on adverts, even the latest re-design will be giving a massive increase in real estate to adverts but they still do not work.

The only reason newspapers were successful to begin with is that they allowed the great unwashed to get news of what was happening in the rest of the country, and then the world when it actual fact many did not even leave their villages from birth to death, then with the advent of tv the whole world was suddenly brought into our living rooms, and then we had 24hour tv news;available whenever we wanted and with the internet we get all that plus we have complete control on which piece of news to read or choose which bloggers site to go to. Technology will always move on... perhaps in another 100 years we will have the latest happenings beamed directly into our brains and then people will weep at the demise of the 'good old internet'.

**handrawn** · 17 March 2013, 11:45 PM

I shall remember this when I pad downstairs to play my vinyl through my valve amp...

**iamtheblues** · 18 March 2013, 09:53 AM

Since emigrating from the UK to Spain in 2001, I have rarely seen a newspaper. I only ever used to buy one (The Times) to get my daily fix of the cryptic crossword, which used to be handily positioned in the bottom right of the back page, so that the paper could be folded for ease of use when filling in the puzzle. Spanish newspapers have a more Latin-American slant to their news reporting, which doesn't hold my interest.
I see a newspaper from the UK only when at an airport, or when friends and relatives visit. I am shocked by how they have changed. They are now mostly tabloid and have the look of children's comics, with massive headlines, huge photographs (mainly of sporting and other "celebrities"). The sports section seems to have moved from the back page to the front and the content seems to be aimed at the less advantaged, shall we say, in British Society. There - I haven't had a rant on this forum in years, I must confess that I enjoyed it!
Bob.