Newspapers: Going, Going, Gone?

[Adam's Apple]

Would you miss them if they were no longer available?

Will Newspapers Survive?
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
October 28, 2007

Like most Americans over 40, I grew up in a home in which a newspaper was read every day. That is no longer the norm. The percentage of Americans who read a paper every day has fallen from around 70 percent in 1972 to 35 percent today. Among younger adults - those under 30 - newspaper-reading has become almost an eccentricity: Just 16 percent read a paper daily. Industrywide, newspaper circulation has been dropping for 20 years. What's worse, the rate of decline seems to be speeding up.

Nobody thinks this is just a temporary setback. The disappearance of traditional newspapers is increasingly regarded as inevitable. "Who Killed the Newspaper?" asked The Economist in a cover story last year. Note the past tense.

for full article:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/28/will_newspapers_survive/

 

[William Joyce]

There are lots of causes for this, but one to consider is that as a nation, we really are getting dumber and more illiterate. The millions of illegals from Mexico and environs aren't reading the newspaper, that's for sure --- but the newspapers are all for illegal immigration. Other minorities like blacks don't read the paper --- just go to any inner-city neighborhood and look for a newspaper box!

 

[midcan5]

I would agree with the author that it is TV that is diminishing readership. And strangely I agree with WJ that we headed towards illiteracy. But it is more than TV, it is the cell phone, the computer, the radio, and work that is killing it. How many Americans even sit down to dinner let alone read the paper? Every evening the Philadelphia Bulletin would arrive and that is when we read, some the sports, dad the horses, me the comics. It was hardly 'leave it to beaver,' but it wasn't today either.

 

[Adam's Apple]

We still subscribe to The Indianapolis Star and our local newspaper, and I would really miss these newspapers if they were no longer available. Our local newspaper is really struggling. It is owned by a family who owns several newspapers in the Midwest and South, so it remains to be seen if they can continue to write our newspaper off as a tax loss.

It is really too bad that people don't make time anymore to read a newspaper. They are missing an educational experience that they can't get from listening to the news onTV.

 

[Annie]

We still subscribe to The Indianapolis Star and our local newspaper, and I would really miss these newspapers if they were no longer available. Our local newspaper is really struggling. It is owned by a family who owns several newspapers in the Midwest and South, so it remains to be seen if they can continue to write our newspaper off as a tax loss.

It is really too bad that people don't make time anymore to read a newspaper. They are missing an educational experience that they can't get from listening to the news onTV.

Seriously, I don't think that people have 'left' the newspapers, rather newspapers have 'left' the news. I still subscribe to the Chicago Tribune, but only because I ought. In the past three years, I also subscribed to WSJ, (15 years), US News & World Report (20+ years); and WaPo, (over 5 years). I cut out all magazines and out of town papers because they offered little of substance that I couldn't get from the Tribune. Really sad to say, the Tribune offers little. I miss The Chicago Daily News, many years after it folded. The Sun-Times? I subscribed for 6 months, other than the comics, there were no compelling reasons to read it. Sad.

BTW, I was a NYTimes subscriber from my sophomore year in college until about 8 years ago, by then I realized it was pap.

 

[William Joyce]

Seriously, I don't think that people have 'left' the newspapers, rather newspapers have 'left' the news. I still subscribe to the Chicago Tribune, but only because I ought. In the past three years, I also subscribed to WSJ, (15 years), US News & World Report (20+ years); and WaPo, (over 5 years). I cut out all magazines and out of town papers because they offered little of substance that I couldn't get from the Tribune. Really sad to say, the Tribune offers little. I miss The Chicago Daily News, many years after it folded. The Sun-Times? I subscribed for 6 months, other than the comics, there were no compelling reasons to read it. Sad.

BTW, I was a NYTimes subscriber from my sophomore year in college until about 8 years ago, by then I realized it was pap.

Yes, but the NYT is more sophisticated liberal nonsense than WaPo. My wife and I subscribed to the WaPo after moving to Virginia out of a sense of "duty" to the region, but it was so awful I/we canceled. Picked up the Times again. The WaPo is like something done by college kids.

 

[Threedee]

I would agree with the author that it is TV that is diminishing readership. And strangely I agree with WJ that we headed towards illiteracy. But it is more than TV, it is the cell phone, the computer, the radio, and work that is killing it. How many Americans even sit down to dinner let alone read the paper? Every evening the Philadelphia Bulletin would arrive and that is when we read, some the sports, dad the horses, me the comics. It was hardly 'leave it to beaver,' but it wasn't today either.

Its the internet that's diminishing newspaper sales. The TV and print media co-existed for 40 years together. It was in the 90's when the internet came online that the bottom fell out from newspapers.

 

[Annie]

I would agree with the author that it is TV that is diminishing readership. And strangely I agree with WJ that we headed towards illiteracy. But it is more than TV, it is the cell phone, the computer, the radio, and work that is killing it. How many Americans even sit down to dinner let alone read the paper? Every evening the Philadelphia Bulletin would arrive and that is when we read, some the sports, dad the horses, me the comics. It was hardly 'leave it to beaver,' but it wasn't today either.

I want to meet the illiterates that are on the internet. Mind you, I'm not saying they can write well, but read? Communicate? Whatever the limitations in the motions?

 

[bush lover]

I trust the lefty media traitors will disappear with the liberal fish wrappers.

 

[Psychoblues]

Take a good look in your mirror, kathianne.

I want to meet the illiterates that are on the internet. Mind you, I'm not saying they can write well, but read? Communicate? Whatever the limitations in the motions?

Your motions are duly noted.