The Paradigm Shift in News

The newspaper business appears to be on it last legs, swimming against the paradigm shift in news. There was a time when print media, such as the newspaper, was a thriving business, but those days are dead and gone. Digital media has been and will continue to grow in the coming years. The immediacy of news content, the ability to easily voice your opinion which goes hand-in-hand with citizen journalism, and niche news markets are the roots of online news.

The immediacy of the internet is an important factor to consider when it comes to the downfall of the newspaper. Instead of having to wait for the news to appear in the paper, news appears as it happens on the internet. Immediacy is a duplicitous edge because of the rush to be the first on the story. This leaves much room for error and misreporting, but the internet is a large place so if a fact is incorrect there are peers to correct it, especially on a popular site.

This is why comments and the ability to voice your opinion create such a large impact in online news. The Huffington Post is a news site that lets you make comments on all of the news stories, which is standard for most news websites. The Huffington Post is a good example of an active community that promotes citizen journalism through the use of the internet.

The Huffington Post also is an example of a niche market. The website is geared toward liberal news. Niche markets are smaller segmented markets that pertain more so to a select audience, in this case, liberals. A good example of a niche blog is Lambgoat. Lambgoat is a music news website/blog pertaining to fans of extreme music. This type of news is not covered in the paper because it is not mainstream. This is where the internet is important for news because websites and blogs have a lower start-cost than print.

Times are changing and the way we learn about and view the world is also changing. Things come and go and while print media will never completely disappear but will definitely fade. Would you rather carry around stacks of newspapers and encyclopedias or an laptop computer. It's about ease, accessibility and cost; in these categories the online medium is a clear cut winner.