Charging for Web site?

There were also numbers released last week that more people than ever before read newspapers last year. Only they did it online. And, more people in that "coveted" 20-30-year-old demographic read newspapers than ever before.

 

This is perhaps the saddest truth, in some ways, to come so forcefully to light. People are less informed and they don't know it's a problem.

 

I disagree. See my above post.

 

The reason, I think, is because they think having a bunch of 24-hour cable news stations means they're more informed than we were in 1979 or '89. Reading a book or a newspaper doesn't offer the instant gratification, and it is often viewed as too challenging by many people today. And even more shocking, not all of them are young people. A lot of people my age (late 30s, early 40s) would rather live in a bubble than know what's going around them and try to understand it.

My daughter is 10. After a moral compass, the next thing I've made sure to try to instill in her is an appreciation for reading and writing. So far, so good. I figure I have to help her in those areas, because I'm all but useless in math and science.

;D

 

How many of the younger set are just reading one article instead of a newspaper. I was listening to a recent Brian Lehrer show were they said that 20 million people visited the nytimes.com in a month compared to one million who get the paper daily.

Another stat given out was that the average reader of the paper spends 35 minutes a day reading the paper, while online readers spend 35 minutes a month on the site. Maybe more people are clicking on one or two stories on the Web per month, but they are not getting the breadth of news that a print reader gets.

 

There's no way to know how many people read every story or just one story in a paper. Time spent reading a paper, I assume, can include doing the crossword, or reading the funnies.

 

Bullshit.

If people "aren't as well-read" as they were 30 years ago, please explain the existence and runaway success of Barnes & Noble and Borders.

If people "aren't as well-read" as they were 30 years ago, please explain how a presidential candidate can mount a successful campaign using the internet (which people have to, you know, read) and harnessing the energy of young, supposedly uninformed voters.

If kids aren't reading, please explain how J.K. Rowling is a billionaire and how Stephen King knows who Stephenie Meyer is. And please explain how I spend time every day hollering at my kids to "put down the book!" or "please put the book away when you're finished reading it" or, to the older one, "You know, there are web sites other than nytimes.com."

I get so tired of hearing about how we're a generation of TV-hypnotized idiots. I don't think it's true. The people I know don't think it's true. People are reading more than they've ever read before. The fact that they are choosing less and less to read newspapers (which for the last 10 years have been in the process of committing suicide by refusing to adapt to the changing ways that people want information) is not indicative of a society that is shunning reading.

People aren't less informed than they were 30 years ago. They're more informed. Perhaps over-informed. The current economic situation is an example of that; things went to hell a lot faster because so many more people heard so much more quickly and repeatedly that things were going to hell and adjusted their spending habits accordingly. That doesn't sound like an underinformed society to me.

The impending death of the printed newspaper is not an indication of society's refusal to be informed any more than the death of the typewriter was an indication that people no longer wanted to type. On the contrary; people want their information and they want it now.

The printed newspaper is not dying because "people don't read anymore." The printed newspaper is dying because people don't read printed newspapers anymore. The reasons for that are open to debate, and there's a lot of blame to be spread around. But don't blame the readers.

 

This may be true, but I'm gonna back up Not Too Late (Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, btw).

NTL asks a legitimate question, one we've all asked and debated multiple times on here, and I'm not sure the point of charging for the Web site is really to "save the industry."

The point is to not cheapen the product -- whatever its form -- by giving it away.

What other business gives everything away for free, somewhere, and in some (any?) form?

If newspapers didn't do that, then maybe they at least wouldn't have quite so many (any?) customers going, 'Why should I pay for it when I can get it for free online?'

 

The hardcore readers will always read, and they'll always be informed. But if you don't think there are huge numbers of people to whom newspapers and books mean nothing, you're kidding yourself.

You read. I read. Our kids read. Some of our friends do, too. But I am afraid we are not in the majority.

And it's not just dummies who don't pick up books or newspapers. A lot of people don't do it because they "don't have time."

As successful as you believe Barnes & Noble, Borders and the like are, I believe they're not as successful as they'd have been if they had come along years ago.

I'm not going to debate the election, except to say I don't think Obama would have lost to McCain but for the existence of the Internet. I think you're giving the Web far too much credit for the outcome of the election.

 

Missed that before my previous post. Interesting.

 

I'm trying to find the story. It was linked on SportsJournalists.com on one of the other threads.

 

Also, I'd submit that tweens reading Twilight and Harry Potter does not necessarily translate to a populace that is "well-read".