Newspapers are dying!
Do you care?
Bankruptcy (aren’t we hearing that word a bit too much these days?) is spreading like the flu through the newspaper industry.
Sick newspapers are laying off talented journalists and ceasing to print entire sections of their journals. People with money (and that does not include members of the USDemocrazy team) are scared to invest in the great american newspaper.
Two smart guys, David Swenson and Michael Schmidt of the New York Times have a plan. They penned this op-ed bemoaning the lack of profit in the industry. They suggest that newspapers become endowed entities like colleges and universities.
The truth of the matter is that our good old-fashioned newspapers are in trouble BIG TIME. readers like you are rapidly switching to (often) free online editions. So, how can newspapers stay alive, without profits from their print editions?
Our friends Swenson and Schmidt hope the money will come from private donors, so we can all keep on enjoying the good old fashioned newspaper.
You might be surprised to hear that reading the paper by computer is an idea that is older than the internet itself. A 1981 broadcast from San Francisco shows how people 28 years ago were contemplating this idea… though it was a lot more of a hassle and much more expensive than it is now. But still, progressive stuff, huh?
[...] paper, shrinking (literally… newspapers are getting smaller), and posting ridiculous losses. Most people are getting more and more of their news online, which present print papers with a positively puzzling predicament: How to make money in this funky [...]
[...] we at USDemocrazy are nutzo for the ‘net. We’ve also talked before about our passion for paper. Thus, we get kinda depressed when we hear of major American newspapers shrinking, shrivelling and [...]