Article link: http://www.economist.com/node/7830218
The article discusses what factors may have had an impact towards the "death" of newspapers, such as the lose of advertising revenue and the shift towards online news. It also lays out the advantages of the digital age of the news industry and the changes it has brought and whether they are positive or negative. There are also predictions on where the news industry is going in the next couple of decades.
1) I agree with the statement that it is a cause concern yet not one to create panic as there still are opportunities for news corporations and new forms of news. News-aggregation sites such as Google News draw together sources from around the world, which can benefit the news sources, however it can also deprive them as users begin to prefer using Google News as a platform over the actual news website. Furthermore, newspapers can still reach a worldwide audience. The website of Britain's Guardian now has nearly half as many readers in America as it does at home. Citizen journalism is now also able to flourish, so there are some advantages, but also disadvantages with it as it can be biased and provide unreliable news. However, there still should be concerns over the change in digital media such as the diminishing advertising revenue for newspapers, less people reading print leading to the loss of jobs and the decline of gatekeepers (professional and reliable journalists). Of all the “old” media, newspapers have the most to lose from the internet
2) The writers predictions have slightly come to pass according to certain statistics from the Ofcom research. Newspaper sales have indeed declined, with some even going out of business. This can be shown through statistics which state that news consumption through newspapers has declined by more than 27 percentage points since 2005, with those accessing their news through newspapers dropping from 40% in 2014 to 31% in 2015 according to the Ofcom report on news consumption. However, this could be argued that it is due to the preferences of the readers in terms of demographics etc. Statistics show that reach of national newspapers varies by age group: 29.3% of 15-24s are print newspaper readers, compared to 67.9% of over-65. Ultimately there is no denial on the other hand that newspapers are in decline and this form of media is dying out, and there is truth in the writers predictions.
3) The fact that the economist suggests that high-quality journalism in the future could be backed by non-profit organisations is true, with a prime example being The Guardian, which is funded by the public. "Good" journalism has to come with a price, and now that much of the news industry is now online means that newspaper have to now invest more money into their news and what platform they provide it on. Many newspapers are being impacted with problems such as a lack of advertising revenue aswell, therefore it is no surprise that websites such as The Guardian ask users to subscribe to pay monthly fees to keep it going.
Profit-seeking media corporations only provide mainstream news of the day, whereas high quality journalism takes an insight into many aspects and provide a variety, which not all profit-seeking media corporations do. Furthermore, not all profit-seeking media corporations would want to provide for investigative journalism. The cost of investigative journalism is quite high and not all media corporations are willing to pursue a claim that they have to spend months if not years searching into as it can lead to a loss in profits which can be used elsewehere. There is also uncertainty with investigative journalism and if a claim is seen to be untrue, it could have a major impact on the reputation of an organisation. The Panama Papers exposed the tax havens that many of today's leaders and important figures around the have taken advantage of, and suggests that the digital age has allowed investigative journalism to move forward and reach higher levels as the Panama Papers have had a major impact in terms of politics, the internet has also provided the general public with the actual papers, therefore it suggests that the digital age is allowing the public to have more power in terms of what they read.
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