Monday, April 5, 2010

What the heck are Newspapers?

It as been evident that for the past 20 years or so, the demise of newspapers of has become most evident in our global economy. I mean, who wants spend their time and money on something so weightless and meaningless in today's world. Ever since the prominent rise of the internet, the newspaper industry has taken a massive hit and gone down and down in the ranks ever since. Our economy and overall democratic society relies on the most efficient of processes. The people want what is most easily accessible at the fastest of rates. Going online for free and in the comfort of one's own home is agreeably more efficient than going out to a local gas station or signing up for a subscription in the mail just to pay for a useless set of papers.
To some, like journalist Mark Evans at http://www.markevanstech.com/2009/04/22/the-demise-of-newspapers-the-rise-of-journalism/, he believes that no one can really tell the future of journalism as a whole. Whether it lies upon online resources, or social networking sites such as facebook and twitter, or even specific blogger posts such as the ones on this site. Public journalism seems to be replacing the newspapers from past generations. It is up to every persons to report on a story, whether they know they are reporting or not, with their cell phone cameras, web videos, live streams, etc. Newspapers are giving way for the people in our democratic society to call themselves significant journalists.
According to Chris Kokenes, at http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/22/newspaper.coin.machines/index.html?iref=allsearch, even minor industries that collaborate with the newspaper industry, such as the metal machines that dispense newspapers, are falling to the inevitable demise as well in our democracy. Will these metal dispensing machines that have been around since the 1950s just become more obsolete objects headed to the junk yard or to a scrap pile? The fall of newspapers in turn can create more industrial destruction than one might think. Within our democratic society, this overall demise could turn our financially trade-based market into a hell hole of sorts. Causing the financial downfall for a lot of industries that were not expected to be affected in the first place. (i.e., metal industries, gas station and post office revenue, etc.) It is up to our government today to help determine this unexpected problems before it is too late.

1 comment:

  1. Zak talks about many issues about the demise of the newspaper and how no one can really tell what's going to happen with journalists and the newspapers as a whole in the near future. I agree strongly with everything he says throughout his post. How could anybody know what the future holds for our society and the newspaper? It seems that soon enough the newspaper as a whole will just be something of the past, and the internet will become the main source of news for everyone. Throughout Zak's post he has really good and reliable evidence supporting all of his accusations about the demise of the newspaper.

    The rise of citizen journalism is discussed in Silverblatt's Chapter from Media Literacy. This rise of citizen journalism discusses that recently people are relying much more on the internet for news. They are relying on sources like blogs, cellphones, video cameras, and online news sources rather than their local newspaper. This adds to Zak's recent post because it shows how people are relying more and more on the internet, but nobody really saw this coming nor do they know whether or not people will become dependent on the internet for their local news.

    According to The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman) the internet hasn't yet figured out how to rescue the newspaper in the United States or abroad. The demise of the newspaper might not be that big of a deal if someone can figure out how to rescue the newspaper through the internet but no one really knows if this will ever happen, and if it does happen, when it'll happen. The demise of the newspaper, to many people is a problem that nobody seems to know what's going to happen. Currently nobody seems has any answers to the downfall of the newspapers.

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