Death of the Newspaper (as we know it)

This is something that shouldn't even be up for debate any longer. Newspapers and all forms of printed media for that matter are dying...very fast.... The debate now is when will it be extinct? I say within the next decade, newspapers as a whole will not exist. Even if coupled with online supplementation....... the bottom line is this: they won't be able to afford it, nor compete with the immediate news reporting of online media. An event takes place, and an entire article is written and posted on the internet within minutes. It takes newsprint an entire day to push the same information out. Portability may have been an issue during the turn of the century, but now we are connected everywhere: Cell phones, WLAN/Wi-Fi, Kindle.....you can get news at any time you need it. Advertisers are not going to waste thier money utilizing a medium that no one needs. Therefore, the newspaper will be a novelty item by 2020.

The issue however is this : The realibility of the "immediate" online news we do recieve. Any and everyone has the ability.....and does (twitter, facebook, myspace) to write whatever the heck they want to on the internet. True beat reporters, real journalism, investigative reporting is what the consequence will be with the death of the newspaper. The line between fact, fiction, and opinion will become even more blurred than it already is (scary thought to think that is even possible).

The only way to salvage investigative reporting......real news for that matter..... is to have some sort of regulation on internet media. Hear me out, this is not a complete Nazi idea. Something as simple as a designator for websites, that were once print, that conducts real investigative reporting......to let the consumer know what they are reading is legit. An accredidation of sorts. I never said government regulation per se, but a combined regulating body of news entities that give the thumbs up on certain websites.