Print media's possible ways forward
- Source: Global Times
- [03:46 November 16 2009]
- Comments
By Sun Wei
The New York Times (NYT) will cut at least 25 news service jobs next year, in addition to the planned elimination of 100 positions by the end of this year. The 100 jobs comprise 8 percent of its newsroom.
Such a layoff decision is not new to the newspaper industry. Under the dual pressures of the financial crisis and new media, the industry is facing an unprecedented downturn.
Many newspapers have gone into bankruptcy in the past year, resulting in thousands of reporters being laid off.
The Christian Science Monitor, abandoned its daily print edition this March, and went digital.
Print readership is shrinking amid the explosion of free information on the Internet. The statistics show that the Internet only accounted for 13 percent of news sources for people in the US in 2001. That percentage is now 40 percent and still on the rise. Meanwhile, 23 of the 25 biggest US daily newspapers witnessed a dramatic drop in circulation.
"Most of those that closed are serious newspapers, which were slow to market changes," Yu Guoming, vice dean of the Renmin University of China School of Journalism, told the Global Times.
"There was the shared consciousness that the news industry is in 'serious trouble,'" Sunny Lee, a South Korean journalist and writer, told the Global Times. He participated in the World Media Summit held in Beijing last month.
China is not isolated from the impact. The First and Labor newspapers declared last week that they would fade out the Beijing market of their comprehensive daily newspapers, according to ifeng.com.
China Press Journal, a publication of the All-China Journalist's Association, closed in late August after 16 years of operation, with a one-time circulation of more than 100,000.
"There is still a large space for print media development in the progress of urbanization," Yu said. "But the increasing market share of ads on the Internet indicates the Web is playing a bigger role in the news industry."
Some solutions are already emerging, as News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch last week accused Google of "stealing" from his vast newspaper empire. He would try to block Google from using news content from his companies.
Murdoch had previously announced making readers pay to read his newspapers online. "The risk is that charges may alienate readers who have become used to free content, and deter advertisers," BBC News commented.
While Murdoch is considering ways to make money from the Internet, the San Francisco Chronicle (SFC) is printing on high-quality glossy paper, staring a week ago, to better serve readers and advertisers, the AP reported.
