Newspapers are Finally Embracing Online

Newspapers are arrogant according to Media News Group CEO William Singleton. Coming from a background in journalism, I am apt to agree. As Singleton points out, newspapers need to stop writing for one another and take readers into account. For a while now, print journalists have been hesitant to embrace the Internet as a legitimate form of journalism. I might even go as far as to say that they recent the forum for speeding up the pace of the news distribution.

Singleton predicts that half of Media News Group’s (comprised of 60 newspapers in 12 states) revenue will come from online efforts. Forty percent will still come from printed newspapers and the lingering 10 will stem from “niche” publications. I think this is a realistic picture of what lies in store for the print broadcast industry. There will definitely still be a viewership for the good old hard copies of newspapers for nostalgia if nothing else, but so many people are turning to their computers to get their daily news, it is unrealistic for other newspaper publishers to think they can neglect the Internet and keep their circulation rates.

As we have seen increasingly over the past few years, media platforms are converging and the only way to survive is to embrace the change and use the emerging technologies to keep your product in front of consumers. In the era of Web 2.0 where content comes to users, newspaper must evolve with the times and at the very least split resources between online and print efforts. What other option is there?