Newspapers

Newspapers: In Decline
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for paper-based news forms to compete with the
rise in e-media news services”
“Over the last decade, the UK’s daily newspapers have lost some 2.25 million readers”
“In the last 10 years, advertising revenues have fallen by about 20%”
Circulation has fallen due to new and digital media forms, so the revenue of paper sales has fallen. Less circulation means that advertisers are not willing to pay as much, so advertising revenues have also fallen, meaning that newspapers are struggling to make profit.

Why is the newspaper industry in crisis?
Ignoring signs of change
Dismissing unconventional competitors
Experimenting too narrowly
Giving up on promising experiments too quickly
Embarking on a ‘crash course’
As newspaper institutions did not adapt quickly enough to the rise of new and digital media, they are now in crisis. They were too slow to try new things.

Should news be free?
“Expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of
news provision” – James Murdoch
“It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it” – James Murdoch
News on the web provided by the BBC makes it “incredibly difficult” for private news organisations to ask people to pay for their news.
As the BBC is a public service broadcaster, it can offer news for free as it does not need to make profit. However, other news institutions are profit driven so need to find a way for people to be willing to pay for news.

The democratisation of news?
“The internet has given readers much more power” – Rupert Murdoch
“The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt to that” – Rupert Murdoch
“Most compelling pictures come from eyewitnesses, and not from journalists” – Chris Cramer
“Passive audiences are gone forever. Today, media owners need to embrace the ‘digital conversations’ with their news, activist, audiences” – Chris Cramer
Advances in technology mean that audiences offer news to news institutions for them to be
able to make a story
News institutions
have to recognise the validity of eye-witnesses
The role of a professional journalist has changed as rather than finding and researching news stories, they now just check the content of a citizen journalist

Audience power?
Through social media such as Twitter, audiences now have increasing power.