Today I read and article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/business/media/19tribune.html?ref=media) in the New York Times about how Tribune Co. is filing for bankruptcy. This is slightly shocking considering this is the company that owns the Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun. These are some of the most successful, and best known news papers in their respective cities. Now this company has a dept of billions of dollars.
How did this happen? How did one of the most successful news paper company in the world owe billions of dollars of dept. Just 20 years ago this would be completely unthinkable. For the last 100 years Newspapers have been the main form of news in America. After the invention of the radio, and even the TV, news papers were still an integral part of every day life. So how did something so important to American society lose so much money? The answer is the internet. As the internet advanced less and less people read the news paper. They were able to find their news online and therefor were not willing to pay for a newspaper. Because of this advertisers no longer found it profitable to place their adds in newspapers and so the newspapers sunk into dept. See it is not the consumer, or the person that buys the paper that supplies the company with money, that profit is minuscule compared to the money it makes by placing advertisements in the paper. Advertisers realize that it is more profitable for them to advertise on the internet because their add will be seen by so many more people. This is why so many internet companies, such as google and facebook are thriving in this internet addicted culture.
So is it good for our country that newspaper companies such as the Tribune Co. are experiencing hard times? After all our country has relied on newspapers to tell us the news for the last 100 years. I would say that it is just part of any capitalist country. Technology drives what is popular and if companies can not adapt then they fail. What I am afraid of is that all signs of professional news will fade and there will be an increase in "citizen journalists" reporting on news. I think the idea of citizens trying to report on news is ridiculous. I do not understand why this is excepted. We do not do this with other professions. No one will ever declare themselves a citizen doctor, but when it comes to news many people believe they can report better than the professionals. In this new world of the internet we have to be careful to not begin relying on uncredited sources with no accountability.
Jason
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What do we do, then, if the market is collapsing on the newspaper business? Are there other viable alternatives besides "citizen journalism," which seems inadequate to you?
ReplyDelete