What will the newspaper of the future look like?
According to the American Journalism Review it will look like this:
A smaller, less frequently published version packed with analysis and investigative reporting and aimed at well-educated news junkies that may well be a smart survival strategy for the beleaguered old print product.
Read the rest of the AJR article HERE.
This is a great topic for discussion for newsrooms (newspaper and TV) and in college classrooms. How would students change newspapers to save them with the threat of the internet? How will the changing media affect TV news and what would students do to make it competitive?
Ultimately I think newspapers will meet their complete demise. Granted this won’t happen for decades to come — I hope not because I enjoy turning pages and feeling ink on my fingers — it’s inevitable that we’re moving into an age where the Web will be the primary source people use to gather their news.
I think if this discussion is held in a newsroom it would yield different answers than if it were discussed in a classroom. Because today’s college students (the Millennial generation) have grown up in the digital world, they’re accustomed to doing their homework, gathering the facts and reading the news from online sources. Maybe they don’t want to save newspapers in the first place, with the exception of having them on hand for novelty purposes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if today’s reporters value newspapers more than online journalism because that’s what they do? They make their income via printed publications. Granted journalists report the news as part of their civic duty, they also have to pay their bills.