Tweets, live streaming, and to-the-second updates bring many questions to the future of print journalism
I was a kid, no more than 10, when I started reading the newspaper from front to back. I never understood most of what I was reading, but I was obsessed with learning. The pictures captivated me, the headlines were clever (if not cheesy) enough that I laughed. At 10, boys are at the monkey-see, money-do age, where anything dad is interested in, so are they.
I fell in love with newspapers, particularly the sports section, at the tail-end of a time where newspapers still gave relevant, up to date news. How unfortunate.
Fast-forward 14 years, and I am sitting behind the editor’s desk for the Sports and Health section of the Ontarion, streaming the Olympics for free online, and wondering what the future holds for my nostalgic affairs with black-inked fingertips and the smell of what can only be described as the “newspaper smell.”
In one word, the news on the future of newspapers is, well, bleak. So much so that newspaperdeathwatch.com chronicles the closures of every relevant newspaper in Western society. Simply searching “death of journalism” in Google brings up a plethora of results ranging from opinion pieces, to anecdotes, to hard statistics that point to print media’s running out of ink.
The New York Times published a book, and followed with a documentary, titled Page One: The New York Times and the Future of Journalism, which examined the rapidly changing tide of news media.
Even though I relish the opportunity to hold a paper in my hands, check MLB, NFL, NHL, and MLS standings side-by-side with the horse-betting odds at Woodbine Race Track, I cannot let cognitive dissonance jade the reality that as each year passes, less and less young people care about print media, and that Twitter personalities update me on sports quicker than websites dedicated to sports, such as ESPN and TSN.
Yes, social media, or “new media,” as it’s called in the industry, is quickly replacing the archaic process of a printing press, and the industry of print media cannot sleep on their dire straits any longer. In 2011, 152 newspapers closed their doors or adopted strictly online publications, which was on par with 2010’s 151 closures.
It gets worse. BuzzFeed is expecting sales of up to $120 million in 2014, and with the likes of reddit, Politico, Bleacher Report, Drudge Report, and other web-based news publications that have up-to-the-second news, the trend to web-only news continues at warp speed.
To prove my point, in the time I have written 420 words on this page, I have received two updates from the CBC’s Sochi 2014 app, alerting me of medals in the cross-country skiing and women’s short-track speed skating events. When I click on the app, I can watch the highlights for said events, or if I care to, I can watch the medal ceremonies live on the 4.7” display of my Nexus 4.
This is the future.
Granted, the U of G won’t be releasing real-time apps that stream all 23 of our varsity sports seven days a week, but most schools are streaming live coverage of sporting events for free online, and at the very least, you can follow the Twitter accounts from athletic programs of all universities and get updates almost instantly.
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative,” commented the late H.G. Wells. And it is with this primordial need to get with the times or be bastioned to the history books that print journalism will evolve.
Industry leaders are calling for papers to put all their in-depth stories into concentrated newspapers, as a means to remaining relevant. GQ has brilliantly set the bar in this approach with enthralling articles on accused murderer Aaron Hernandez, former tight end for the New England Patriots, and Phil Robertson’s candid comments on homosexuality and his Christian faith.
Look no further than the detailed reports Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan put together on Rob Ford to prove that newspapers will sell…when they produce content people care about.
Heck, Sportsnet began publishing a bi-weekly magazine in late 2011, and it still continues to bring in a profit for Rogers Media, Inc. There is a market for detailed coverage on relevant news.
The future may be foggy for newspapers, print journalists, and print media as a whole, but the changing tides are undoubtedly ushering the industry into a new era of unknowns that will be saved when the formula for sustaining hard-copy circulation is cracked.