Since I was 12 years old, I've wanted to be a journalist. For at least the last five years people have doubted my choice to study journalism. "The newspaper is going out style" they tell me or "Good luck with getting a job." But what those pessimists don't realize is this: Yes, the paper is experiencing lower readership trends, but the younger generation will get older, settle down and will be more interested in new, thus leading to reading the paper regardless if it is on a tablet, on their phone or on paper.
The paper isn't going to disappear it is just evolving to the Electronic Age. People have to get there news from somewhere. Journalists will be and are still be reporting the news. Tom Robinson wrote an article that was published in HNN titling 2009 as "The year the newspaper died." I obviously disagree with this article, because next to me is today's issue of USA Today.
Last week, I attended a lecture about the future of digital media and journalism. The presenter pointed out that newspapers have been preparing for a change for at least the last two decades. Papers tested out the waters with the online subscription and some paper chose free subscriptions. Online papers have the freedom to upload stories as or when they are happening; unlike the print version. Some publications hold information from the online paper to get readers to pick up the paper edition.
Online paper editions open up a whole new world for the paper's readers. The reader's is now capable of commenting on a story they like. Designers have begun to use interactive graphics and visuals that allow readers to take a closer look at the story. The New York Times did a marvelous piece with interactive design. The series, called 1 in 8 Million, allows the reader to click on individual stories of average people in the city who have done something extraordinary.
An article from American Journalism Review did a great job of explaining the misunderstandings of the decline in newspapers. According to AJP newspapers actually have the upper hand. Newspapers have localism, brand-name recognition, historic profitability and monopoly status and a few others, but you get my point. Newspapers have been around for over 300 years and it will have to take more than the internet to demolish this huge powerhouse.
