The death knell for newspapers has been ringing time and time again these past few years as more and more people get their news via other sources, i.e. television/radio/internet (or is it that newspapers have been declining because of the newspaper business itself?). Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has written a piece on the life, and possible death, of newspapers.
There's some interesting little tidbits within the report (by the way, Editor and Publisher also has a story about falling newspaper circulations)...
"The first newspaper published in the colonies - Publick Occurrences - appeared in Boston on Sept. 25, 1690, and was promptly suppressed by the government, which denounced its 'sundry doubtful and uncertain reports.'"
The percentage of Americans who read a paper every day has fallen from around 70 percent in 1972 to 35 percent today.
Industrywide, newspaper circulation has been dropping for 20 years.
I still love reading the paper. Sure, I could get the same information on the internet, but there's something about holding those ink-smudged pages, something about unfolding all that information, looking for the sports page, the arts and entertainment section, the latest Get Fuzzy comic strip, that still means something to me. Of course, I have to wash my hands afterwards, but small price to pay to learn about what's happening locally, state-wide, nationally and internationally, all the while learning what price per pound Bosc pears are the coming week at Safeway.
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