This is my final project for Engl1B at SJSU. As always, read this as an inflammatory op-ed. It’s only factual enough for a lower division writing class. 
Newsprint is dying. The writing is on the proverbial wall, and somebody somewhere is blogging about it on the Internet. Whenever there is a paradigm shift in any industry, it inevitable that there are casualties. Companies cannot cope with new business models; individuals lose their jobs, displaced by new techniques and smarter processes. But many times there are survivors, veterans in the displaced industry who adapt and fill a new niche in the new paradigm (Babu). However, in the current shift from hardcopy press to Internet news publication, there is no newsroom and there are no survivors. There is no giant, breathing, churning news company. On the Internet, the information already flows and aggregates itself. So where will the newspapers go? Internet pioneers have already defined how news is found and consumed. The Long Tail out performs the army of payroll journalists. And, at this point in history, newspaper publishers have already missed their opportunity to jump into the new paradigm and be leaders. Consequently, they will struggle, they will try to adapt, and they will be out competed in their current form. Regardless of how they try to adapt, publishers of traditional hardcopy press will not survive the paradigm shift to Internet news publication.
Continue reading ‘Late to the Party: Newsprint on the Internet’
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