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Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world’s editors showed.
The report, conducted by Zogby International for the World Editors Forum and Reuters, revealed that newspaper editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.
Some 86 percent of respondents believed newsrooms should become more integrated with digital services as two in three believe the most common form of news consumption will be via electronic media such as online or mobiles within a decade.
“The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how. Editors now know the solution: Innovate. Integrate. Or perish.”
Newspaper owners and publishers look at surveys like this and often their reaction is “very true – except for us”. Denial is always easier than change, ain’t it?
Good news sites continue to prosper, less good ones turn into entertainment news sites and the others probably die over time.
Very true. In my town there is a major paper and several local “fish wraps” The major paper has a free online website while the fish wrap does not. Sure you can read the fish wrap online, but you have to have a paid subscription to the paper. You can’t even have a paid internet only, you actually have to get the paper to get the internet access, talk about clueless. I emailed the clueless editor of the fish wrap and he proclaimed that his way was correct and that other papers that offer free internet viewing were wrong.
In the case of Albuquerque, I can’t figure out why the “fish wrap” (in this case, the Abq Journal) survived, and the good newspaper (the Abq. Tribune in the header) perished. Maybe people aren’t actually interested in real news anymore…
Newspapers were issuing opinion disguised as news before. More local news is the answer.
#4: In this case, the Tribune was the better paper with more local news, as well as some locally written stories with national import like the plutonium tainted black men.