Demise of the Newspaper: Not a Big deal

Long gone are the days of the Walkman, disco music and vinyl records, and the print media industry is following in the demise of these ancient things. Every morning, I fire up my laptop and have millions of news articles just a few clicks away. From sports to politics, up to date information is being fired at me from all different directions, and I love it!

In a 2008 article in the New Yorker entitled Out of Print, Eric Alterman cites an article by the Carnegie corporation which states that "As early as 2004, newspapers had become the least preferred news source among young people." The younger generation, especially college kids, have seemingly become attached to their computers which has allowed for this change.

The ability to have massive amounts of information at my fingertips has allowed myself, and most likely thousands of college students around the country to effectively write papers and conduct research effectively and efficiently.

In his blog, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, Clay Shirky states that "Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is Journalism." There will always be forms of media which provide us with information, so why should we suffer reading through a newspaper, when we can read the same information online for the most part, free? The potential move from print media to online digital media is an essential piece to progressing the profession of journalism. Bob Dylan once sang "Times they are changing", and for the media world, the extinction of print media will eventually prove to be a positive thing.