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Do You Still Read A Paper Newspaper?
from the paper?!? dept
While it's unlikely to come as that big of a shocker to many people reading this site, many young adults don't read a paper newspaper anymore. Instead, they get their news online. Amusingly, Editor & Publisher's online editor admits that he, too, despite his job talking about newspapers (even if online) does not read a newspaper. Apparently, the original study found that, when handed a newspaper, a "young lawyer" basically had no idea what to do with it. It was too big, too clumsy and had too much info. Navigation is a pain. Plus, many hate the fact that the paper piles up around their house, whether or not they read the paper. Online solves many of these problems. Of course, it causes new problems for the newspapers, but they've mostly kept their head in the sand about this. Instead of actually dealing with the issue, they tend to do silly things like put up registration gates or subscription tollbooths. Or, some are simply pulling their content off the web altogether. Rather than helping them out, though, this just sends users elsewhere. While newspapers are still struggling with this, perhaps they need to realize that the nature of the news business is changing and that they could be better off looking at ways to help users spread the news rather than just consume the news. In the meantime, though, we've added a new poll about whether or not you still read paper newspapers?
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
Survey bias
The way the survey is worded, will it attract a representative sample of the population? Heh.
It could be that paper newspapers do have articles that aren't on online editions.
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Re: Survey bias
Any chance that the people who are getting news online weren't reading newspapers before they got online?? Hmmm. If people want to get the news, they'll get it, in whatever form it comes in.
Could be, too, that what a lot pf people call "news" isn't really news. Lots of people say they get their news from blogs. That's like saying you get your news at the local bar after work.
As for that lawyer who couldn't figure out how to use a newspaper, let's do everyone a real service and publish his or her name. God knows I don't want to hire a lawyer who can't figure out how to navigate from page one to page two.
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Re: Survey bias
i read the paper everyday. its way better than online. I use the internet for indepth info concerning a subject. its relaxing, especially if your at your computer 8 or more hours a day
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I stopped and maybe you can too
I used to get the local newspaper 'religiously' since age 18. It was the major source of daily news and had the TV guide. Fast forward 15 years and TiVo makes the TV guide unneeded (and usually less current than the TiVO guide), and as for news the Internet is a far better source. National and world news are far better represented online, and I can read the occasional story of local interest on the newspaper's web site. If I couldn't get the local news as I do, I'd do without. But I stopped my paper subscription not because of cost ($7 monthly) or lack of need, but because it was a pain to collect it daily especially during snowy/icy winter weeks, and it did pile up in the house and had to be disposed of. Good riddence as far as I'm concerned. Two years without and I don't miss it one bit.
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No Subject Given
I can remeber the last time I bought a newspaper. It was in 1994 during the "Rwanda Crisis". Since then I've been able to get all the news I need on the Internet.
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No Subject Given
I have given up the main stream media long ago as they seem to busy publishing their own political agenda rather than publishing news. I check once in a while when I find a paper I can read for free, but can see that CNN, Reuters, AP, NYT etc are today more biased that ever before. I get all news from the internet.
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Mainstream Media
In the USA the press (apart from a few excpetions) is localised and frequently does not deal with important issues. In other parts of the world the press provides a great service - much better than the net. (How many of these news sites that you go to are in fact run by nespapers by the way?)
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Re: Mainstream Media
The US is a big country. Local papers carry local news. There are also nationally oriented papers like the Wall Street Journal and even state oriented papers (usually those published in the capital city.) So the news reader has a choice based on their desired area of interest.
Of course there are more locally oriented newspapers than state or nationally oriented ones, due to the coresponding numbers of such entities.
I used to subscribe to four news papers and read them every day just to cover the local, state and national news sufficiently.
Since I've moved to a rural area where newspaper delivery is unreliable, I've been getting my news from the internet. For national news the coverage is excellent, for state news there is the ipl.org site where I can browse the larger papers. But for local news the internet falls short of a local small town paper.
Most of the web sites I vist for news are run by newpaper publishers. Why would that matter? I'm interested in the information not the media that disseminated it.
Best regards,
A. H.
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Yep!! Still reading the local Rag.
Don't need 3 out of the 5 sections the newspaper prints (world, Sports, business) as they are all more current on-line. Local News (Region, & Local Entertainment) can be found by visiting a number of web sites but the paper still aggregates it better.
If you're not reading your local news (and I mean your town/community) your either fortunate enough to have a good alternative media source (would really love a local website that's up to date and useful but as with most governments, mine is run but an older generation who doesn't take to technology well ... and quite honestly I'm not sure how much more I want to pay in taxes to support the switch) or your blissfully ignorant of how important your local news is to you.
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No Subject Given
It was too big, too clumsy and had too much info.
Too much info? Is that a typo? One of my primary objections to dead-tree news is that it has vastly insufficient info. If there are words, ideas, events, or names you don't know in a newspaper, does it allow you to find background information instantly? If you would like opposing/contrasting ideas from across the political spectrum or from various international viewpoints, does any single newspaper help you to obtain these? Does a newspaper allow you to respond to stories immediately?
I think not.
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