Although the introduction of gizmos such as Twitter have revolutionised the industry, newspapers are under more threat of closure, than perhaps ever before. With news seeming being broken within minutes after the event, by the time the mornings papers hit the shops most people already know the day's big headlines. When you also take into account live television and radio, the papers seem to lose their appeal.
So is the newspaper on the way out?, well interestingly James Ball of the Guardian believes so. The former WikiLeakes employee says that with: "papers losing 10% of circulation a year, print is a sinking ship." Ball is not the only journalist with these thoughts, former News Of The World journalist Chris Tate stated that: "we're in the final days of print journalism."
However all may not be doom and gloom for print journalism, Channel 4 news presenter John Snow spoke of being in a world: "where people are hungry for information." Although the likes of Twitter can break a news story with immediate facts, they cannot give you the insights and angles that a fully fledged journalist can. This theory is backed by BBC Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton who reckons that: "The public appreciate being given the facts."
To combat the falling circulation, the papers have focused on their online publications with the Guardian being the fifth most read English-language news site in the world and has over 30 million users. With these online figures they way they are, will all newspapers be just online publications in the near future?.
In conclusion, future of newspapers is very much uncertain but in whatever format, the papers contain different qualities that other sources cannot provided and that the public cannot do without.
