Death of Newspapers

[ethics]

The other day I was reading one of my favorite columnist in NY Times, Thomas Friedman. Friedman, as of late, is not on the mark but I still read him. Anyway, last time I was reading him, I felt that I was reading another blog and it occurred to me, why would I want to subscribe to a paper when you have a wealth of blogs out there?

The Washington Post reports that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37138-2005Feb19.html">newspapers are struggling.
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"Print is dead," Sports Illustrated President John Squires told a room full of newspaper and magazine circulation executives at a conference in Toronto in November. His advice? "Get over it," meaning publishers should stop trying to save their ink-on-paper product and focus on electronic delivery of their journalism.


The Post provides statistical evidence of the drop in newspaper mindshare. It looks at the percent of people reading a newspaper in daily in 1967 and in 2004, broken down by age group.

Age Group 1967 readership rate 2004 readership rate
18-24 70.8 39.0
25-34 72.7 38.8
35-54 81.0 53.0
55+ 75.5 67.4

[Steve]

I read the local paper for the local news. Their national and international coverage isn't anything more than I can get from anywhere else, particularly online, but the local news coverage is very good and, to me, important.

[Piobaireachd]

I read our local newspapers (they're awful) for local events and press releases. My wife and I are involved in several local non-profit organizations and submit press releases frequently.

I also subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. These, as well as the internet, television, and radio is where I get my daily dose of news.

I don't see print news or magazines going away anytime soon. The bottom line is, I won't take my laptop into the bathroom and trying to read a paper on a PDA just doesn't work for me. :)

[Techie2000]

For local news I read the local paper also, however for national news, well I have AvantGo setup with my PDA to download the New York Times (well parts of it) when I sync once a day. I don't really use it on regular days, but on school days I almost always read it in a study hall.

[Fiona]

I don't subscribe to the local paper. I think I've mentioned before how their obvious bias has turned me off from them. However, if hanging around Mom's house on the weekend, I will pick up the old papers and look through the local section. That and the occasional classifieds. That's it.

[tke711]

I still subscribe the the Sunday paper only, the daily I read online. For some reason, I find it very relaxing to lounge around on a Sunday morning with the actual paper versus reading it online. Plus, I like all the sale ads.

[John R. Beanham]

Up to about 6 years ago I bought 2 newspapers a day and read them from cover to cover.


When I purchased the 'beast' I soon became addicted to on-line news and ended up cancelling the papers.

The money saved more than covered the cost of the phone-line and ISP.

John.