Even as the internet hasn’t affected how journalists report the news, it has had a direct impact on daily circulation of newspapers in every community across the country. More and more businesses are going paperless with emails and virtual data rooms. Newspapers were once the only source of news for most cities. Many major cities had a morning news edition of the local paper, and an evening news edition. With the introduction of television, people began turning to broadcasts to get their information, and cut down on newspaper circulation. Papers that once were released twice per day cut down to only one edition. People would watch the news to get the headlines, and read the newspaper to get more in-depth information on the story. This only made sense as the majority of television newscasts are thirty minutes, while a newspaper can devote thousands of words on one individual story.
The advent of the internet cut down on readership even more. People stopped tuning into broadcast television and whatever stories they happened to be reporting, and could create their own news feeds. They turned to the internet to read the in-depth stories based on their own interests. As newspaper readership numbers plummeted, communities that had competing papers were now reduced to one daily paper. This created a bottle neck on information. Editorial staffs could pick and choose which stories to put in the paper and readers had little choice. They could only choose with their subscription dollars. The internet delivered all the news in the world, from whichever viewpoint source the reader chose to research, everything from cardiology news to sports. Newspapers are in a death spiral. As readership continues to decline, advertisers are pulling their advertising dollars and going to where the eyeballs are. Newspapers are either forced to raise ad prices and scare off additional advertisers, or lower ad costs to attract more vendors. The rising cost of pulp and paper equipment to create newsprint means lower profit margins for newspapers. As profit margins decrease with declined readership and increased ad space, newspapers have to stop devoting space to the news and just become page after page of advertisements with the occasional story buried in there somewhere.
The newspaper industry is going through a paradigm shift and has yet to discover if it has a role in the future. If a community paper can create an information conduit to a subset market, then it may survive. Think of it like expanded newsletters that reach a large niche. But if the rising cost of paper newsprint puts profitability out of line, then newspapers will go the way of the dinosaur. Unless an alternative resource, such as bamboo or even papyrus paper can become substitutes for newsprint and bring costs in line, then the rustle of a paper and the smell of ink may become memories for a digital future.
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