The future of newspapers? Surely not.......

News report from 1981! So much I could write about it but for now I'm going to let you just watch it.....

Comments

[Peter Gold]

Will never happen :)

[Alex Hens]

Peter Gold
Owns A Home Computer

:D

Brilliant

[Jamie Leonard]

I know some regional press houses that are still using this technology. True story.

[Richard Tyrie]

A bunch of regional newspapers working together to create an internet presence that was slow, lacking even basic usability, and generally not much cop for the user?

That could never happen over here, could it? meh.

[David Marshall]

From bloggy aggressive bastards to half witted politicians

A interesting article in today’s Media Guardian covering the alarming development for the French Newspaper industry http://tinyurl.com/a9hg3t. A scheme announced a couple of weeks ago by President Sarkozy for a €600m project that aims to cover the costs of distributing free copies of newspapers to teenagers in an effort to “boost dwindling readership and lure youngsters back from the internet” In other words a bail out!

Please let’s hope the British government doesn’t get wind of this in the light of the recent ‘Ed-Balls up’, (covered vigorously on this blog) suggesting that UK Local Authority websites shouldn’t compete with the press for audience.

The Guardian article then goes on to interview lots of teenagers across the world who all say the same thing. Guess what we get our news on the web – no sh*t Sherlock!

Join the debate invites the Guardian - Should other countries be following suit? And would their young people welcome such a giveaway?

Absolutely not on both counts I say. And to further ram the point home, add to declining circulations and readership research from the Media Standards Trust finds that 75% of the British public believe newspapers publish inaccurate stories and that “public trust in the press has fallen below the necessary level for it to perform its proper role in a democratic society” http://tinyurl.com/a9hg3t

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that this is an industry in terminal decline, media consumption has irreversibly changed, and their businesses need to do the same. Lets not prolong the pain any longer - maybe we should be discussing a government sponsored program of business euthanasia rather than propping them up.

[Sinead Bunting]

I was sent this Yahoo Answers link by Sammy D in our team on the decline of USA newspaper market -some titles are scaling back their subscription deliveries to focus on digital content.

http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/02/is-this-the-end-of-newspapers-as-we-know-them/

What's interesting from the comments from US-based users, is the lack of trust in newspapers amongst the general public - seems they are too liberal for the American folk.

Here in the UK, dwindling readership has ensured that tabloids (at very least) slip further and further into sensationalist, celebrity filled fodder - they should be renamed 'celebpaper' rather than 'newspaper'. Say what you will about Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand, but the whole furore over the John Saachs affair was a good example of tabloid induced hysteria.

Now, never wanting to put a negative spin on topics, I have pasted one of the comments from the Yahoo Answers site below- on the other positive uses of newspaper. Please feel free to add to - we may save the industry on this very basis.

'Besides being great reading material, newspapers have many other uses that no web page will ever be able to replace!

Here are the top 10

1. Bird cage liner
2. Puppy potty trianing aid
3. Cat attitude adjuster
4. Fish wrapper
5. Emergency Gift wrap
6. Randsome note letters
7. Mirror cleaning aid
8. Packing material
9. Paper machea (sp) projects
10. 1st job for little boys

[Alex Hens]

11. lighting fires
12. swatting flies
13. aid to self defence (one of the Bourne film stylee)
14. stuffing into your younger brother's clothes and then being as threatening as possible as you demand passers by to give you "penny for the Guy!"
15. compost (particularly if your vegetable matter is too grass clippings based)

like to add constructively to a debate where I can :)

[Matt]

With some smaller regionals already shutting or shut and the ES sold for £1 how long do people think it will be before the presses stop printing at one of the nationals? Days, weeks, months or years?

[John Whitehurst]

I also find that you can get a lot of entertainment from newspapers ... looking at the size of the recruitment sections and laughing at all those people who said the internet will never work for recruitment ...

[Adam Gretton]

"Online is the way forward and you should spend all your money with sites like ours, not the newspapers."

Oh no, hang on - we're owned by the FT now:

"You need an integrated campaign across print and online!"