Are newspapers really becomong obsolete?

Actually, i think newspapers would be doing fine if today's kids weren't so damn stupid and could actually read. We have fewer readers (people who read the paper) because there are fewer readers (people who can and/or do read).

 

Ahem. We do read.

We just read differently.

(And BTE, I bet I read more news on my cell phone than I read on a computer or in print combined.)

 

yeah, and there's no stopping that trend, either. Can't wait for Google phones.

 

I'd rather read my news in print than online or on my phone any day. It takes too long to get through the articles online, and if the site isn't set up well, you'll never actually make your way to all the articles that are in print. Plus it's relaxing and more interesting to read the news on paper.

 

What's coming down the road is staggering.

10 years ago if I told you that your TV would pause in live motion and record shows like a computer or a tape player, you would tell me I was crazy. If I told you it would cost you $5 a month to do this, you would say that I am even crazier.

Cuban has mentioned that what is holding back the internet and the wifi age is the hardware we have in the ground.

For example, Netflix is already bracing for a DVD less nation by starting to offer downloadable movies online. For half of the homes on your street to be downloading HD movies at 7 pm on a Friday night takes an amazing amount of bandwidth on your cable line or your DSL line. Right now, the infrastructure is just not there to do this. And Cubes says it will not be there for a while.

http://www.google.com/search?tab=nw&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22born%20into%20technology%22&safe=active

Some fascinating reads on "born into technology." This will be the catch phrase that replaces "outside the box."

I still feel the paper newspaper is safe, though.

 

I don't agree. I think the cliche and easy excuse is to say kids today are dumb, etc. But I know in public schools if you haven't learned to count and know your numbers in preschool, you are behind in kindergarten.

My kids learned to read in kindergarten. I learned to use play-do and fingerpaint.

I don't think kids are dumb or any less readers than before. They are just learning different stuff -- a lot of it crammed into their heads by TV and pop culture, though.

 

I have vowed to never let my children play with play-do, but to scrimp and save so that they can have play-doh.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

Good discussion going on here. Let me add another factor:

I don't read the print version of the paper in the same way that I read it online. When I have the paper, any paper, in my hands, I'm much more likely to leaf through all of it than I do online. Many times, I'll read a story in the paper that I wouldn't have seen online because I don't tend to click on all of the section tabs online. Even the home page of a newspaper website doesn't do a good job of letting people know everything that is inside.

That is part of the treat of buying the newspaper, as opposed to reading it online. A lot of times, I'll buy the paper after getting the general picture from the paper's website.

 

I'm a web editor, but I can't give up my papers. The town rag doesn't have a web site, so I have to read it for local goings-on. But I don't discount papers, I treat them as yet another provider of information, like TV or radio.

 

I've stopped buying paper newspapers because I refuse to subsidize morons who give away their product for free in another form and increasingly remove value from the printed version.

 

That's a misconception that seems to float around here a lot. Newspapers aren't giving away the product by putting it online. Ads on heavily trafficked newspaper websites rake in millions. It's like "free" TV. No company I can think of would give away its product without getting something back. It's just a different type of revenue stream.

The Dallas Morning News decided to shrink its circulation area because it decided it wasn't cost-efficient to deliver the paper a long way. The paper said readers could continue to get the product online. So it may seem as if they're trading, say, X thousand paid readers in West Texas for 0 paid readers in West Texas. But the West Texas readers are hitting the website and, they would say, click on the ad banners.