by Philip Fernando in Los Angeles for Sri Lanka Guardian
(December 05, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian) We no longer receive our news as we sip coffee in the morning. The paperless news outlets spawned by the internet usurped all that. The contraction of print media is really the creation of new opportunities in this digital age; the 24 hour news cycle feeding the internet editors. However, Newspapers are making a valiant effort to lead the way with strong branding, talented writers, a renewed sense of social responsibility and resources that far exceed what competing businesses offer. The claims of the demise of the print medium are, indeed, greatly exaggerated. We will see newspapers pitted against the newspaperless, said one analyst. Americans are getting attached to the blog sites with a vengeance. Over 5,000 bloggers feed their fancies everyday. Readers are more eager to redirect their dollars to electronic, subscription-based media. Americans also spend a higher proportion of their disposable income on media and entertainment and the print media is now fighting to grab a larger proportion of that budget. People here basically go to work, go home, watch satellite TV, play with their mobile phones or rent a video, and that's their life. But getting glued to their computers and surfing the web has now taken a hold on them.
Growth in media spending by consumers has grown. The mobile phone and the TV market took a good slice of that. But there is a saturation point in the mobile phone and pay TV markets. Print media is now trying to get back the customers they lost through creative displays and superlative writing. As travel costs increased due to high gas prices more time is spent on reading in many homes. So many are likely to have a satellite dish, a mobile phone, an internet connection and a DVD player and high speed access to the internet. Print media has to compete in that field.
Traditionalists believe that the Internet is no more likely to bring down newspapers than the advent of TV half a century ago. They cite special attributes of newspapers, their immediacy, involvement, credibility, creativity, consistency and flexibility of use to convince us that the print media will make a comeback. They point out that newspapers are the most flexible of all news products and the role of editors and journalists in bringing the news together for readers is uniquely valuable.
The London Economist begged to differ. It ventured out the statement that extinction of all or some of the papers in the UK are only a matter of time. It claimed that newspapers are on the way out and that it is only a matter of time before there are closures with half the world's newspapers likely to close in the foreseeable future because 'business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart (The Economist August 2006).'
It may not be quite accurate to predict the demise of print media just yet. While the reading habits have changed drastically, more readers are going for the quick read, the rapid glance through the internet sites in comparison to a Sunday afternoon lengthy piece in a newspaper. Those who read newspapers by habit also seemed to be in the higher income and older age groups. Even that is also changing. Younger generation is a vast ocean of tech readers. Magazines with technical appeal are spreading their circulations fast.
The newspaper companies are in a transformational phase. The purpose is to embrace and try to make the Internet a second source of revenue. Nobody is sure where present trends will lead. Some say that the free-to-air TV is feeling the Internet's effects in the same way. Preferences for modes of access to news as hand-held downloading devices become more available and online access more universal are yet to unfold fully. Within newspapers the news priorities adopted by publishers and editors will have much to do with their future.
It can be said with a great deal of certainty that the interaction of print media and online versions of newspapers and the direct impact of developing blogosphere are vital to what and how the new media will develop. The state of the new media would be one of the vital areas of interest in our everyday endeavors in time to come.
So suffice to state that terminal decline is not a description that is warranted for the print media, certainly not yet, given the innovative and vigorous response of newspapers to the challenges they are encountering. Said one critic, the juggernaut of change is challenging everybody in the print part of the news industry. Another prophesized that the print media will adapt to and monetize digital distribution and advertising revenue; and meet their obligation of "feeding them spinach with the ice cream" in the interests of a civil society.
(The writer , Author of the “Barrack Obama Feasting on Freedom” ) - Sri Lanka Guardian
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