Without a doubt, print journalism is dying. However, not all hope is lost: journalism can be kept alive as long as news outlets adapt to their new audience in the online landscape.
2024 has started with the slow death of journalism as several papers and magazines have laid off large numbers of people, including The Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal and many local papers as well.
The way I see it, print journalism is a medium of the past.
You don’t see many people out on the streets opening a newspaper while on the train or buying one at the corner store or the paper boy asking for 25 cents a paper. Many, myself included, don’t even read the news from a newspaper – we look at our phones, listen to podcasts, search the web or watch the news on television.
Newspapers are the origin of what made journalism so relevant in the first place. However, even now newspapers are grasping for life as circulation has decreased significantly since its peak in the 1980s, dropping by over two-thirds of what it used to be according to the Pew Research Center.
People look to the news for their primary sources of information during large elections. They look for coverage of candidates, op-eds about who did the best during presidential debates – they look at journalists to inform them of what is going on in their country and in others.
Without journalists, we lose this source of information that differentiates facts from half-truth, that helps our minds define what we want to decide on without going out and being at the rallies or the debates. We can make our own decisions and inform ourselves better with the news.
Print journalism is dying, but there are other alternatives that should be giving us hope.
Podcasts, TikTok, Instagram and other social media sites are adapting news to a new life.
All the future of journalism needs to survive is the same as every other species that craves survival: To adapt. Adapt to the new methods of news that are more conventional to today’s audience.
Many newspapers have changed their ways of what they used to be, especially trying to reach younger audiences through TikToks and podcasts. One of the best examples of this is The New York Times with their podcast “The Daily.”
If journalists could adapt to a new world of news, a new world of entertainment where people can listen to a voice they want to listen to, it would be the saving grace for journalism. It would be the next evolution of news for people worldwide. It already is the newest evolution of news.
So, yes, journalism is dying. We need to change the way we see journalism from how we used to see it to how people see it now. It’s entertainment people want, so, if we can be both factual and entertaining, then that is where the future of journalism lies.
