I remember the classic black-and-white movies with the little paperboy shouting "EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!" I remember films and shows that spun attention-grabbing newspaper headlines towards the screen. I remember early college mornings spent with The New York Times, learning more intricacies of the New York Yankees than I ever cared to know.
But pretty soon, when it comes to newspapers, all I'll have are memories. And I don't know if that's a bad thing; in some ways it's fine. But it's definitely sad, and newspapers' new Internet versions create more complications than I initially realized.
Newspapers used to be the source for credible, deep reporting. I came to know the writers of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (especially the sports section) by name, by style, subject and nuance. Part of me will miss the tangibility and familiarity of such newspapers. But most of me will embrace the saved space, speed, innumerable publisher options, and other technological advances of newspapers' online counterparts.
Time.com recently published an article written by 247wallst.com, reporting on the unstable status of ten major American newspapers, and the likely foreclosures of most of those ten-within a year and a half. Already, multiple nationally-recognized newspapers have declared bankruptcy or relegated themselves to purely online distribution. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver closed, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which is owned by the Hearst Media Corporation, transferred exclusively to online publication after 146 years in print. Hearst also owns The San Francisco Chronicle, which will probably close if it cannot make sufficient cuts.
Along with those, 24/7 goes into details about The Philadelphia Daily News, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Miami Herald, The Detroit News, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Sun Times, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer. The authors came to these ominous conclusions by analyzing "the basis of the financial strength of [the newspapers'] parent companies".
But I wonder if the disappearance of newspapers truly a bad thing. Surely it's somewhat depressing when I consider the common nostalgia felt by people long associated with the medium. My father was born in 1952, a time when everyone expected the same paperboy to chuck the morning paper into their driveways daily. My father says he misses those times (though he gets most news from the Internet).
I imagine many people who grew up without the Internet will share that feeling of loss. Newspapers have been staples of American journalism since close to the inception the country. According to historicpages.com, written by Phil Barber, the first newspaper appearance in the U.S. came in 1690 when Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic in Boston.
But a long tradition has not slowed public's gradual shift away from newspapers. "The decline in overall newspaper circulation began in 1989, and has continued at a relatively stable pace of just under 1% a year," reports journalism.org.
A major reason for the decline is the Internet--that progressive technology that has wasted no time dismantling the markets, production, and influence of nearly all forms of popular media in the last twenty years. As it continues a steady march towards ubiquity, many of those media have realized the importance of using it (music, magazines, television, film, video games, even comic books-all have ventured into the online realm).
Once broadband speeds become worldwide commonalities, the vast selection and immediacy of downloadable music will be introduced to an even larger audience, even though it has already caused many people to abandon CDs entirely. Software downloads have left record companies in extremely precarious positions with their revenue descending annually for the last decade or so. According to the Recording Industry Association of America's shipment and financial statistics, in 1997, the industry accumulated 13,711.2 million dollars in total shipments. In 2007, the number had fallen all the way to 7,985.8 million-about a 42% decrease.
I have contributed to that downfall. I continue to do so. I contributed to the massive piracy problem that was so pervasive in the early days of file-sharing software by downloading countless songs and albums without payment and without a second thought (though, like many, I have since realized the immorality of those actions and currently purchase digital music). But I continue to contribute to the decline by acquiring music online, which bypasses sources of income only existent in acquisitions from retail stores (e.g. packaging).
But I still miss some aspects of owning CDs. I miss the stylized lyric sheets; I miss album cover art like incubus' picture of a sun rising on an empty sunlit beach; I miss seeing artistry like two hand-drawn, red-and-yellow coy fish on the disc; I miss feeling pride when I see a collection of albums along a shelf.
morphing Paper Fish
