Can Newspapers Find Their Niche in the Internet Age?

Newspapers can’t find their Niche in the Internet age unless they combine the strengths of print and cyberspace; traditional media traditional media may have trouble surviving (David Shaw).

Internet is the most used source of information nowadays. Students are at the top of my list. They access facts and ideas when they are doing their research, project, paper/book reviews, etc. They even get videos from the net and use it in class presentation. And then everyone else comes next. People don’t refer much to the radio or television or newspapers. When they want to get information, the first thing that will pop into their minds is the internet/computer. Because with just one click, poof! You got the answer to all your questions; you got the information about your research, etc. People are attracted to the unique features of the internet; they are fed up with what they see as the bias, inaccuracy, sensationalism and arrogance of traditional media.

It is true that if newspapers can improve their print publications to the advantage of what the internet can’t do and at the same time create their own website to capitalize on what the internet can do, they could thrive both journalistically and financially. The internet after all is just a delivery system — electrons and wires rather than ink and paper. “It doesn’t change the nature of what we do. It just changes the tools we use” (Owen Youngman).
Newspaper executives and the people who work for them must see themselves as being in the information and communications business, not the newspaper business.

Newspapers not only have the experiences staffs necessary to gather the news, but they must also have the editorial standards, the connection to their communities and the record of public service that would seem to give them a head start in any race to establish a journalistic beachhead in cyberspace. But cyberspace is infinite. There are no time or space limits — and ultimately no gatekeepers. Anyone can disseminate information instantly, throughout the world. The news consumer has to be smarter; he must do his own filtering of news, etc. The web is so informal and errors are easily and quickly corrected, many people writing for the web are less concerned with accuracy than are most traditional journalists (David Weir).

The internet is a bigger threat than TV. It is growing faster than TV did and it offers far more services than TV does—and it has come along at a time when newspapers are in a weaker competitive position than they were when TV began making its inroads. In fact, when a big news story breaks, many people already turn first not to newspapers or TV but to the internet. The internet is competing with newspapers for more than news, though. It is also competing for advertising, which provides about 80% of the income for a typical newspaper.