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Max Bayer

Student Print Newspapers are Slowly Dying - 26 views

journalism NYTimes

started by Max Bayer on 28 May 13
  • Max Bayer
    #1 Max Bayer on 28 May 13
     
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/nyregion/at-school-papers-the-ink-is-drying-up.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    How can (if it's possible at all) student newspapers create a Renaissance of interest in print paper?????????? #KeepPrintAlive
  • liz archer
    #2 liz archer on 28 May 13
     
    I think that it's going to be difficult to keep newspapers alive amidst the growth of media sources (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.). When things happen in the world, people can instantly "tweet" whatever happened, along with photos, faster than staff on a newspapers writing, printing and delivering newspapers to stands on the streets. I hope that newspapers stay alive, but eventually many newspaper companies will go out of business because of the lack of sales.
  • Riley Kuffner
    #3 Riley Kuffner on 29 May 13
     
    Printed news was once a huge revelation, a way for people to learn about the events occurring around them. But in the modern day where these needs can be met easier and cheaper with a computer, print is slowly dying. Newspapers have been part of society for centuries and this change seems odd, saddening to those in the industry, but their extinction is inevitable. The same information in newspapers is available online with less or no cost to the reader and likewise for the publisher. This makes printed news obsolete, there is no demand. To survive, news companies must adapt to the new society. They must explore online publications. In addition, printed magazines that provide something not available online will still draw support. In small communities like Tam, where no other news source is available than our local publication, I believe that we still have the potential to keep readers. This implies that we still must achieve the necessary funds to keep it running.
  • Sarah Asch
    #4 Sarah Asch on 30 May 13
     
    I think the point about urban schools with less resources being less likely to print a regular paper or magazine is an important one. If you think about the Tam News Patrons list, and consider what our budget would look like if we didn't have community members chipping in...it is makes sense that there some areas of our country that can't afford that. The problem with newspapers, I think, is our generation. For example, I agree that they are important but I still don't read them. I think that newspapers provide a layer of protection against some dark government conspiracy to control the press that may or may not evolve in the future. This possible conspiracy would be more easily accomplished online or in some other technological setting. Newspapers, being on paper and thus impossible to hack, are harder to be controlled and that is, of course, the point of them. I think that environmental considerations and costs are important to consider when looking at newspaper circulation but if there is ever a world with no newspapers, then our information will become less reliable.
  • Markita Schulman
    #5 Markita Schulman on 30 May 13
     
    I agree that it is important for the news to stay alive, and I feel somewhat nostalgic about print, but I think that we are in a transitional period in terms of our society's use of technology, and what matters most is maintaining a readership of reliable, important news; it doesn't matter so much whether that readership relies on print or online media. A different issue arises when we look at the way writing and presentation change for the Web, and that is a place where I think we can't make sacrifices; articles shouldn't be shorter to compensate for society's shorter attention span, pictures shouldn't replace words, etc. If it's possible for a school to create a print paper, that's great. But if they find that it is easier, cheaper, or more accessible to students for a publication to exist online, that transition should be made rather than losing journalism entirely.
  • Dom Quaranta
    #6 Dom Quaranta on 30 May 13
     
    The future of news is all going to be digital. Almost all major newspapers today have websites and access to hundreds of interesting articles at just the click of a button. Riley made a good point that printed news was once a revelation, but we are in the midst of an adavanced technological era, and with so many people with access to computers, wasting all the paper needed for the ridiculous amount of copies seems too old-fashioned.
  • Emma Boczek
    #8 Emma Boczek on 04 Jun 13
     
    Despite the tempting idea that we must "save" the print newspaper, I think it's important to keep in mind that all newspapers seem to be pretty clearly transitioning out of print. It's easy to chastise "our generation" and their short attention spans for this change, but the truth is that distribution of information is equally important on a physical piece of paper and on an iPhone. It won't be productive or progressive of us to blindly hang on to print should it, in the future, become no longer realistic in terms of money/readership. Like Markita said, I think that the end of student newspapers shouldn't mean the end of student newswriting. Adapting to a new, interactive medium would show more strength than insisting on tradition for tradition's sake.
  • Haley Fretes
    #9 Haley Fretes on 06 Jun 13
     
    I agree with what many others have said above. As great as newspapers and magazines are, I think it's clear that they are moving towards becoming obsolete. Especially as younger generations are born into this world of so many electronics, the more unfamiliar they are becoming with print. I think that rather than trying to focus on "saving" the newspaper all together, news teams should work towards accepting the fact that electronic copies are becoming more popular and try and adapt their work to reach the most amount of publicity through the digital media.
  • Sophia Ellingson
    #11 Sophia Ellingson on 12 Jun 13
     
    "Students raised on a diet of Internet posts and instant messages may be unlikely to be future newspaper readers".

    I liked these two quotes a lot. The first I feel pretty accurately reflects what is known as the modern teenager (aka us lol) but just because we may not read black & white prints in the future, doesn't mean we won't be reading news at all. This relates to what Emma and Markita were saying in that adapting to a new method of publishing stories doesn't mean new will die along with the classic newspaper.

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