Sunday morning, you wake up, make a cup of coffee, grab the newspaper off the front porch and sit down and browse the paper. This has been part of our way for as long as I can remember. Well, how does this sound?……Wake up, make the coffee, and then open up your laptop, or turn on your Smart Phone, and get your newspaper subscription on line. How does that sound? Well, hopefully it does not sound that bad to you as this is where we are going. Printed newspapers are going to fast become a thing of the past. Rising costs of paper, ink, printing, marketing, and transportation coupled with the fall in newspaper advertising, including Want Ads is forcing many newspapers to either close their doors, or resort to online subscriptions. Papers like the Rocky Mountain News, one of Denver’s two newspaper publications printed their last edition a couple of weeks ago. Other major newspapers like the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Seattle Times are also facing a losing proposition. In fact the San Francisco Chronicle posted a $50 million loss last year. It is estimated that it costs the New York Times almost $600 million dollars per year just to print their daily editions. With approximately 800,000 subcribers, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is not very lucrative. And this is not a localized problem, but is a reality for most major publications in the U.S., including magazines, and books. But what is causing the demise of the printed publication? Well, the short of it is the Internet. Because of sites such as CraigsList, advertising income to newspapers has fallen off substantially, thus creating an income deficit. Digital books and audible books, are fast becoming the rage, thus hurting publishing companies. With the addition of high quality book readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle ($359.00), and aps for smart phones such as the iPhone, which enable subcribers to download (in seconds) exact copies of books, newspapers, and magazines, who would have the need for suffering through the “black finger” syndrome caused by browsing printed versions?
As for me, I think it is a good thing, I would much rather receive RSS feeds, or browse the New York Times website to get my news, and digital & audio books are also very appealing. Why would I want to go to a bookstore, and buy a book when I can download one, in many cases cheaper than the printer versions, with a couple of clicks on the keyboard. I can literally have hundreds-of-thousands of publications at my finger tips. I can have the New York Times delivered to my computer everyday, and do not have to worry about soggy papers, non-deliveries, or missing pages. It will simply work.
Now there are other pros and cons that need to be looked at here. What will happen to the little local news publications? What about the jobs that will be lost due to the digital publications? These are potentially both downsides and serious ones at that. However, let’s think “Green” and save a few trees, actually a few million of them, this is a positive. Not to mention the cost reduction, and convenience of receiving these printings digitally.
Now I specifically mentioned Craig’s List earlier in a negative way……this was unfair. Who has not used Craig’s List? What a great way to advertise, search for employment, sell items that are of no use to you anymore…..the possibilities on this site are endless. Job hunting is done mostly over the internet. Mass posting of job resume’s is common place in today’s day and age. No more going from business to business and dropping off printed versions, by hand. Employers have also bit on the digital solution to finding employees. I don’t know of any business who, may still collect paper printed job applications, but does not also look on the internet for potential applicants. The WWW just opens up so many doors on both ends of the stick.
What are your thoughts on this? Is the printed newspaper doomed? Is all this for the better or for the worse?
Hit Me!!!!
My Edible Earth 