By Jeremy Ambers

I recently came across this interesting article while I was perusing the internet.  I’ve often wondered how the current business model of the Newspaper Industry can withstand the tidal wave of immediate access to information that we’ve seen over the past decade.  After all, what use is a daily newspaper (with yesterday’s news developments) sitting in your driveway, when you can simply roll over to your night-stand and access the internet on your blackberry, or turn on any number of 24 hour news stations to hear what the ‘talking heads’ have to say?

Every morning, I ride the train to work, and I pick up a paper from one of the modern newsies.  Often times, I find that half of the paper is ‘old news’ I’ve already heard about through other means.  Still, it passes the time on my 20 minute ride.  With the constant bombardment of newer, shinier stimuli, newspapers don’t stand a chance.  Casually looking around the train car, I notice the number of people reading newspapers has significantly dropped over the past five years.  Now all I see are i-pods and blackberries. 

Sure, news media have started to embrace the concept of instant gratification.  Every daily newspaper has an accompanying website complete with everything you could ask for; the articles featured in every issue, as well as additional, web-only content that is used to draw more traffic.  What if these media conglomerates opted to end their print publication all together and focused their attention on web-based content?  Perhaps they could apply the costs of printing and distributing the daily paper to hiring new and original writers and reporters.  This would create more ‘voices’ who report the news rather than relying on the Associated Press for most of their articles.  In theory, more voices equal a more ‘fair and balanced’ news media.

Still, there’s something to be said about sitting with a cup of coffee and a morning paper.  Even that has been targeted by new technology.  Amazon.com recently released the Kindle.  Basically, the Kindle is an electronic book that weighs less than a typical paperback and allows you to download up to 200 titles at a time, as well as many of the top U.S. newspapers and magazines.  You don’t even need a computer or WIFI hotspot to download content.  If you are in an area with cell phone reception, you can download content right to your Kindle!  AND, without a discount (which there are many of), it costs only a little more than an annual subscription to The New York Times (which is available for download)!

From 2000 to 2006, newsprint demand in North America fell by 25%.  I don’t see that number going up anytime soon.  This is yet another example of a challenge that has been set forth by new media.  Unless the Newspaper Industry can grow and adapt to this change, the future does not look bright.