Extra! Extra! Read All About It... On Your Phone

When doing a Google search for the question "are print newspapers dying," the first article that pops up is titled "Lets Get Over the Whole 'Newspapers are Dying' Thing." It's an article from The Guardian and it's all about the fact that newspapers are still producing content and people are still reading that content and where you read it (either on your phone or on a physical paper) doesn't matter. It does take into account that newspapers are having to be innovators - something we've talked a lot about in class. It also gave an interesting fact; apparently Gen Y consumes 38% more news (from newspapers) than Gen X.
The author or this article makes 5 major points about newspapers innovation:

1. Don't try to be an aggregator - offer informed, and unique perspectives not found elsewhere
2. Do your homework - study online behavior A LOT
3. Be smart with your add ons - don't just add stuff for the hell of it 
4. Move away from advertising money and towards content based money (i.e. subscriptions) 
5. Importance of life events - membership gets you more than just a newspaper, it gets you access

Personally I really enjoy this way of thinking. It's a nice middle ground between social media sites are taking over the world and newspapers are dying. But let's talk about print media - an article from USA Today gives the numbers for 2015 from a comprehensive Pew study. The basic premise? Print media is declining, and expensive... but a little over half of readers still prefer a print version! So it's not all bad news. If I'm being honest though, I think print media is on its way out, but it won't be for awhile. Print media is just way more expensive than digital media and as the people who prefer print become decrease the price of that print media is going to increase. And as that price goes up, the people willing to pay that price will go down (aka the law of demand) - this cycle will continue until print media continues no more. Media is changing, it has before and it will again - and I don't really think it's a bad thing. Newspapers will continue to produce important content, we will just probably be consuming that content in different ways.