Sad Day for Newspapers

By Nathan Young on May 24, 2012

http://blog.al.com/al/2012/05/alabama_media_group_a_new_digi.html

If you missed the announcements this morning it has to hit you hard if you love newspapers. The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, Mobile Press-Register and the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune have all announced they are cutting back the print editions of their newspapers to three days a week. The affected newspapers starting in fall 2012 will only be printed on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. And the online media content will be expanded. But these cutbacks are going to affect many employees and contractors who deliver the newspapers to the houses every morning. And for the people who love to hold something in their hands to read something. They are having a bad day right now.

But is this something we all knew was eventually coming? I mean more and more people get their news from various online sources now. Plus more and more people are growing tired of newspapers because they have an left-leaning slant toward news. Also; have you seen the redesign of al.com? Many people have already commented saying they do not like it. I tend to agree with them as it looks confusing.

The future of media and getting news is something James Spann has been preaching for a while now.

http://www.bigbrainsmedia.com/2012/03/24/who-are-we/

We believe the old broadcasting model is dead. Other models that are going away…

*Broadcast networks
*Traditional, over the air delivery of programming
*Broadcast towers and antennas

Not only newspapers are slowly dying; but our average TV stations are slowly dying as well. What is going to take over that old media platform? It’s blogs! Blogging has grown over the last few years and has become relevant news sources. Geek Alabama has also seen great traffic growth and it’s only getting better. I would not be surprised in 20 years blogging becomes a major news source! Also podcasting is only going to get stronger as well! The cool thing about all of this is anyone can start-up a blog or podcast and become a major media source over time. Also anyone can become an instant news reporter through their phone! I am sure you have also seen many stories from someone’s social media account. I encourage you to watch this video when James Spann spoke about social media.

I’m sorry to see the newspapers slowly going away. I get the Anniston Star daily and read multiple news websites daily. But the future of news is changing for the better! And that should get anyone excited! That’s why the internet is open to anyone!