Newspapers are dying, the future of journalism is online

The Ann Arbor News, which had been in print since 1835, closed its doors in 2009.

In an interview with Crain’s Detroit Business, Steve Newhouse, chairman of advance.net, said that “losses were going up” at the Ann Arbor News and “the audience was a challenge,” so the parent company closed the paper and opened the web based local media outlet AnnArbor.com.

“We thought we could either keep cutting back and make the daily newspaper work, or transform the model and build a new sustainable product for the community,” Newhouse said.

This example is a microcosm of the transition the entire industry is in.

from Calbuzz.com

Around 2008, the newspaper industry started to crumble. Revenue from professional and classified advertisements, long taken for granted, dried up. The Internet had changed everything and few if any companies anticipated the shift. Businesses relying as heavily on printed ads because the Internet enabled them to communicate directly with consumers. People didn’t need to pay for classified ads because sites like eBay and CraigsList enabled them to do so for little or no cost.

Contrary to the gloomy forecasts of naysayers who watched the fallout from the safety of its periphery, journalism didn’t die. It endured because many companies did what Newhouse and his associates did. They transformed in order to build a “new sustainable product for the community.”

Online journalism is the present, and as far as anyone can tell, the future. Just about every single legacy media outlet, whether based in television, radio, or print, has an online interface. Some even utilize their online platform more heavily than their legacy platform.

Despite any potential nostalgia for the feel and smell of the daily paper, the transition to web based journalism shouldn’t be lamented. In fact, it should be celebrated for many reasons.

The Internet is instantaneous. Whatever is posted is available immediately. This has infinitely expedited the dissemination of information. Now, if a shooting happens downtown, people see “Shooting Downtown” headlines within hours of the first shot instead of reading about it the morning after. While this expediency raises the expectations of journalists, requiring them to work harder and be even more competitive, it ultimately connects them more directly to their readership and enables them to do their job more effectively.

Furthermore, the Internet has freed publishers from the physical limitations of print and enabled them to integrate and aggregate material in a far more useful and convenient way than ever before. If you read a story on AnnArbor.com, it’s as long as the writer and editor thought it needed to be and it has links to related content. It may even have videos in it. In this way, the Internet has unleashed unlimited potential for journalists and for readers.

Of course, the Internet has also given rise to social media.

These sites have proven to be a bane and boon to journalism and to the dissemination of accurate, meaningful information in general. On one hand, sites like Facebook have enabled journalists to interact with readers more than ever before. Furthermore, it along with Twitter provide citizens with an opportunity to publish news as they see it or hear about it, which further expedites and integrates the sharing of information. These benefits aside, it has also tended to enable people who to insulate themselves further from the outside world if they choose to.

For better or worse, those sites are here and journalists are expected to have a presence on them. Furthermore, almost all news agencies have pages on Twitter, Facebook, and many other social media sites that enable them to spread awareness of recent news stories and provide their readership with a more tangible voice in the coverage of news.

by Steve Snodgrass

Despite the benefits of digital journalism, journalists must not become complacent. The fact of the matter is that as beneficial as the Internet has been for journalism, no one has figured out how to make digital journalism platforms profitable. According to Online Journalism, by James C. Foust, there are three major models.

The first model is to sell advertising, just like newspapers used to. An online journalism outlet can charge companies for advertising on their sites. For example, the Eastern Echo sells the space above its photo gallery to outside companies for ads. The cost of the advertising depends on the size of the ad and the placement on the webpage. The value of a journalism site’s ad space is determined heavily by measurements known as page metrics. Web analytics software measures how many unique visitors a page has and how long each visitor stays at that page. If a page has a large number of unique visitors and if those visitors tend to stay on the page or the website, then the journalism company can charge more money for its ads because more people will see them. While this model has helped generate revenue for news agencies, it hasn’t come close to bringing in the kind of money newspaper ads used to.

The second model is to charge subscription fees. For example, the New York Times allows a visitor to read a limited number of online articles per month for free and charges a subscription fee after the visitor has exceeded that quota. This model has seen setbacks because the Internet has pampered the public with free information for years. The digitized generation simply doesn’t want to pay for information, regardless of its value.

The third major model is to offer value-added services for subscribed users. For example, a website may have open content but then have exclusive content such as videos or other multimedia that users can only access after paying a fee. The New York Times also tried this model but ultimately dropped it.

Despite these hurdles, it is clear that journalism is intrinsic to any free society. The industry will move forward and continue to provide people with accurate and meaningful information.

Kody Jon Klein is a journalism student at Eastern Michigan University. You may contact him at kody.jon.klein@gmail.com.