Have we reached the end of the road for the print press?

News has been the staple of the print industry for centuries...a far cry from the first print press. Since the world-wide-web came to life, the dead knell of the newspaper industry was pretty much announced.

Google and yahoo, and other search engines were first to mark their territory and sculpt out a share...and soon they stepped into news aggregation, a natural 'next-step' in their development. They unilaterally shaped the future for the rest of the industry, and changed the course of all future news media developments.

Today, one need not waste a minute flicking through a newspaper, because the news is on the internet and just a finger click away.
Some services even now provide audio news!

Such has been the story across the world that one wonders why it has taken so long for the world to latch on to the new trend. Never the less, it appears in a few years, or decades, particularly because of the 'save the forest' campaigns all over the globe, print press may be retired to the chronicles of history....fodder for historians as well as scholars...but not a great deal more.In its place, a much easier, quicker, less complicated , and more accessible and free system of consumption: online newspapers!

The future is not completely hopeless nonetheless, as print industry leaders begin to appreciate the importance of online presence for their brands. As they assume more aggressive online marketing methods they will adapt with the new trends and hopefully, carve out a new model for their flagships.

That said, it won't be a monopoly on information ever again. What with the bloggers and citizen reporting taking root. The Iran elections to the fore a modern phenomenon…citizen sharing in journalism, or in short citizen journalism. Iranians send photographs and videos across the worldwide web and gave access to millions who wanted to know what was happening in the ‘now'…something the print media would have got round to after editors and journalist had polished off their articles, edited out any unfriendly footage and doctored some of the material to put across ‘the right message'.

The presence of bloggers also complicates things for the old model of doing things in the news industry. No longer do people have to take what the editor and his sponsors want them to hear…no longer are people forced to wait, and no longer is the right to control information dissemination the sole privilege of ruling dictators and parties…anyone can be a newspaper, anyone can be a journalist, and anyone, can share his opinion.

That is the power of the web. As news aggregators take root...the future looks bright. We stand at the edge of a new dawn.

(ArticlesBase SC #2647790)

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