I’ve been posting here for quite some time about how people see newspapers failing. I’m not exactly sure it can all be blamed on the internet, just as I’m not entirely sure we can pick a date in the future when all newspapers will have disappeared.
A friend and former colleague in newspapering just posted a column with a new take on newspapers disappearing. He addresses a side issue, another way notable newspapers of today are failing:
The ink in my blood grieves the slow fall of the New York Times. The New York Times is one of, if not the, greatest newspapers in the history of newspapers. But ink flows as easily as blood: The New York Times is hemorrhaging money and circulation (the two are usually related) at a rate that should alarm the owners and employees of the old rag. As a lover of periodicals, I mourn the slow bleeding.
But the bleeding does not surprise me. Some blame the rise of the internet as the reason for the suffering of the Times and other newspapers. While a relationship between the rise of the internet and the fall of the traditional newspaper clearly exists, other newspapers, notably the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, have managed to buck the trend and increase circulation.
The Times’ decline is primarily a result of the failure of the great 20th century experiment of objective journalism.
It’s a good read. Read the rest here.
Word Lily 