Comments on: Stop The Presses!

Newspapers As We Know Them May Cease To Exist ... But What Will Become Of The News Itself?

[Slrman]

Technology and times change. Yes, as newsprint doomed the town crier, the internet will eventually kill off printed media. For example I am an inveterate reader. All my life I have been surrounded with books and rarely does a day go by when I do not read at least part of one book. As such, I have always had dozens, if not hundreds of books around me. Today, I have one e-book reader with over 700 books and articles on it.

Even better, all of these were downloaded from internet sources for $0.00. The print industry may moan and groan, but it's over, people. The train is leaving the station. Either get on board, or get off the platform.

[Swen_Swenson]

Yes, newspaper readership and advertising dollars are way down, but I think your analysis misses the point. Are people just not buying the paper because they can't afford the fifty cents? I'd suggest that the demise of the newspaper, and the major media in general is caused by the failure to report the 'who, what, when, where, why, and how'. When the media quit reporting the news and started 'trying to make a difference', when they quit printing "all the news thats fit to print" and started printing just that part of the news they want us to know, they hit the skids.

Straight up news has broad appeal, propaganda only appeals to those who agree with it. When you alienate half your readership, what would you expect?

[pabarge]

Oh yes. Newspapers are dead. Schadenfreude over flows. Liberals whimper and whine. Bring it on, baby.

[Koblog]

The mainstream media of television, cable and newspapers--referred to as the Matrix by someone I read today...the Matrix that deceives us while sucking us dry--has brought us to this present condition where they have sown the seeds of their own destruction. And ours.

We now have a National Socialist Democratic Party, fully supported by the media.

The Treasury Secretary is calling for the power to seize any company that is deemed too important to the nation.

The bankrupt newspapers are being offered Nationalization in return for printing what the Government tells them to print.

The FCC-licensed broadcast spectrum is already under government control.

Newspapers have served their purpose. They can now be dispensed with or accept government funding and become Pravda, as if they weren't government organs already.

We are now a fascist state. The government is in control of the largest corporations.

Our newspapers failed us.

[aprilsnchome]

I have many of the Charlotte Observer and NY Times historical front page headlines and photographs dating back to the fifties. What do our future generations do about this? Print them from the computer?

[HippieScum]

Yo...(credibility2)
Your comment about computer animation is not only irrelevant here...It is ignorant and shallow.
You sound like The "unibomber" but with no real intellect.
CG animation is a god-send to computers! But you have no ability or credibility to speak about it.
Lets see, you can go to the hospital and request no computers be used to help you.
You see...One dimensional is your outlook on the world...two dimensional would be step in the right direction...But in Three dimensions you can only better understand things.
Go to four and then your cooking with gas!
Oh yeah...whiny over-payed newspaper people.
Im glad you have competition that is free and more widespread.

Opinions...they dominated many newspapers...Comics are the only reason they are worth the 50cents you ask for.

Flash animation killed 2D...Not 3D btw.

[madprof44]

I'm a moderate Democrat and don't share the the views expressed here by some of the right-wing commentators. But I must say that everything CBS publishes on this subject misses half the story: the politicization of the news over the last eight years.

Dismissing the concerns of half your readership, even going out of the way to insult them, is not how the great newspapers of the past made themselves indispensable. Faced with competition from blogs or aggregators, the media seem to have made the decision to become like them rather than strengthening what they do best: hard, straight news, taking on the difficult subjects, reporting fairly.

The question, "who is going to cover city hall" would be a good one if newspapers hadn't decided over the last eight years to stop with the covering and start with the pontificating. The coverage of important events, from the war in Iraq to last year's election, has been so obviously slanted that much of your readership no longer trusts you. That fraction of the market to which you've been throwing red meat will fault you for not throwing enough. Blaming Craig's List for their predicament shows how little the media understands that much of this they brought upon themselves.

The media changed before the marketplace did. I for one am sad to see you go, but what I'll morn is what you used to be. Unfortunately, at the very moment you need the loyalty and trust of your readership you've made yourselves dispensable.

[platteman]

Great, the more liberal rags that fold, the better. The MSM news is just like the newpapers. All liberal rags on TV and they too shall fall also. Real news is hard to find. Most of it is slanted towards the great messiah O and his wonderful ways. Too bad that the MSM and the liberal rags can't do a real story. With the US going farther in debt, thanks to the great stimilus bill that no one wanted to cover, or ever read, we will see more of these rags fall apart.
We won't need to cut as many trees to produce newprint to be recycled and that will be great.
Say good bye Gracie, the liberal rags are dying and I hope they all fold soon.

[credibility2]

I hate anything one-dimensional like news on the Internet, or computer-animated cartoons. I hate magazines going the route of the Internet. Things on the net are impersonal and lack a personality. Ironic that this is the wave of the young and the future. Says it all about both, which isn't very much.

[jilliancyork]

It seems quite clear to me that whomever wrote this piece had read the Media Re:public report from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, released late last year:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/mediarepublic/