The journalists at Arizona State University are asking “What is the future of journalism?” Their answer seems to be what many news organizations, like the Arizona Daily Independent have known for some time; digital.
ASU’s student newspaper, The State Press, will shift toward a digital-first newsroom starting Spring 2013. They write that they are not completely abandoning print.” They will offer a weekly newsprint edition.
The journalists say that this gives them a chance to be creative. “One story may need powerful visuals, while another can only be told through sound. As student journalists, we can be thought leaders in our industry and not just silent observers. Our reporters are not bound by the same journalism playbook.”
The ASU student journalists report that the “shift toward a digital newsroom actually began with our readers. We cannot ignore that a daily print newspaper has a different value in the digital age. College students consume more and more media on their computers, smartphones and tablets. We’re all connecting, sharing and relating to each other on multiple social media channels. The spread of information no longer relies on ink, but on an Internet connection.”
More and more news sources are experiencing the pinch of the high costs of newsprint, and the rejection of the medium by younger generations with environmental concerns.
The student journalists cite tradition as a reason some will find the shift a sad trend, but note “if we look closer at this tradition, we see that it was more about covering our University in an independent and responsible way. This tradition is very much alive, even if daily newspapers disappear.”
Disappear they most surely will with the emergence of independent publications in response to the mega-chains like Gannet and Lee controlling what locals know about their communities.
According to Paul Gullin of Newspaper Death Watch, “The Internet recently became the world’s largest advertising market and it’s going nowhere but up in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, newspapers who have lost the young audience are focused mainly on milking whatever revenue they can out of an aging reader base while doing little to prepare for a digital future other than trying to charge for the content they now give away. This is not a healthy state of affairs.”
Rather than ramp up advertising sales, the Arizona Republic has gone to a pay per view model. The model ignores the sharing of their articles in cut and pastes email blasts which prevents their online advertisers any contact with readers.
In some instance newspapers are using the services of foriegn companies. One company, which was founded in 2006, works with “dozens” of media companies according to Anna Tarkov . Philippine-based journalists provide coverage for local papers across the U.S. The overseas journalists do the “scut work,” as local “newspapers have slashed staffs and seen profits disappear, they’ve struggled to prioritize paying for this kind of elbow-grease coverage.”
Out of print:
• Daily Worker
• The National
• Huntsville News
• Anchorage Times
• Gila Bulletin
• Phoenix Gazette
• Poston Chronicle
• Tucson Citizen
• The Arizonan
• Los Angeles Evening Express
• Los Angeles Herald
• Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
• Sacramento Union
• San Francisco Call
• San Francisco Herald
• Rocky Mountain News
• The Hartford Times
• Manchester Herald
• Miami News
• The Atlanta Georgian
• The Atlanta Times
• Daily Intelligencer
• Idaho Falls Free Press
• Chicago Daily News
• Philadelphia Press
• Pittsburgh Press
• American General Gazette
• The Evening Post
• Nashville Banner
• Austin Citizen
• Austin Tribune
• Dallas Dispatch-Journal
• Dallas Times Herald
• El Paso Herald-Post
• Fort Worth Press
• Houston Post
• Houston Public News
• Salt Lake Herald
• Alexandria Gazette
• Arlington Sun
• The Richmond News Leader
• Columbia Basin News
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer (print edition 1863–2009)
• Seattle Union Record
• The Washington Bee
• The Washington Daily News
• Washington Herald
• Washington Star
• Washington Times-Herald