Pew Research Center reports that more Americans now rely on the Internet for news than the newspaper. Looking at the chart below, it will be a couple more years before Internet surpasses TV, but that’s the direction we’re moving.
Source: Pew Research Center
I still think there’s a place for newspapers in your communications plans, mostly because the people who read them (disproportionately older, highly educated, opinion leader types) are valuable people to have on your side. But my experience with government agencies and green groups is that you are still unhealthily dependent on PR techniques and procedures that are tailored to fit newspapers.
We have to recognize what steadily vanishing readers and advertisers mean for this industry: pending doom. Still need proof? Take a look at the ad revenues for the New York Times family of publications. Revenue is down 20% in the last quarter of 2008, with both print and online ad revenues dropping. And that’s a relatively healthy member of the newspaper family.
I’ll miss the daily paper, but there’s good news in this for you: Journalists were always loathe to take sides, tout solutions, and encourage their audience. As they leave the scene, you have an opportunity to step in, fill the information vacuum yourself, and inject those vital and missing ingredients into the community debate
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