The End of Printed Newspapers?
The newspaper industry is entering a new era. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has become America's first newspaper to stop printing and become the first newspaper to appear online only. The newspaper was 146 years old, the oldest in Washington State.
Only about 20 people work for seattlepi.com , the Internet version of the newspaper. Once over 150 people worked in the newsrooms of Seattle's most famous paper. There is only one daily newspaper left in Seattle, The Times. Many people think that it could follow the Post-Intelligencer by going online only too.
Among other big cities in the US, Denver only has one daily newspaper because the Rocky Mountain News closed a few weeks ago. Some newspapers around the US are afraid of going bankrupt. Among these are the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
One of the main problems that printed newspapers face today is advertising. Big local newspapers earn a lot of their money with ads. But that market has moved to advertising on the Internet which is either free or costs very little. Another reason is that many newspapers have become bigger and bigger. They have spent too much money expanding and buying up other papers.
Newspapers are reducing costs wherever they can. In Detroit daily newspapers are delivering their papers on only three days a week. In Ohio the state's largest newspapers are sharing stories. Almost 8,000 jobs have been lost in the newspaper industry.
Newspapers have lost millions of readers in the past years because a new generation of readers has emerged. Much of the news that people get online still comes from newspapers and most of them publish it for free. While newspapers have fewer reporters in big cities and abroad, observers say that they have lost much of their quality. The question is: Will they find a new home on the Internet?
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Words
- abroad = in other countries
- advertising = marketing; to show products and make people buy them
- appear = here: to be published
- bankrupt = if you don't have enough money to pay back what you owe someone
- deliver = to bring to the homes of the readers
- emerge = show up, grow
- era = time
- expand = to get bigger
- face = have
- local = in a certain region
- observer = expert who knows a lot about the industry
- publish = print
- reduce = to lower
- share = to use with someone else