Will The Death Of Newspapers Adversely Affect Us?

Every day for months now I constantly read about newspapers filing for bankruptcy, laying off hundreds of people or simply shutting down. This is not a new thing, as a slow decline has been happening for a couple of years now. But there is definite traction now and you see it so frequently.

I never really gave it much thought. I have always gotten my news primarily online and T.V. and I have worked for a company that simply put, "does and services online news broadcasters through-out the US". So I am fairly up-to-speed on how, when, why people get their news online. It's no surprise that newspapers are struggling and I never really gave them a second thought. I have never been one to have a weekly or Sunday paper delivered to my home. The news was always available in digital form when I started paying attention to it. As a kid, I would only check our hometown newspaper to see if I or my friends made it in there for sports or good grades or drinking/speeding tickets.

I never really thought through the consequences of this impending death. The more I think about this, the more it starts to make me feel a little sad and uneasy. What would the true and lasting consequences of this be? As I was reading, I stumbled upon an interesting study that poses an interesting issue. According to The Daily Princetonian, there was a study done to measure how the decline of newspapers is adversely affecting political involvement of citizens. The article is worth a read and some thought. There are so many people who don't really put much effort into their civic duty. I believe it is because we are so uninformed and our lives are so busy. Now that your local paper might not survive where will people find the condensed information?

The Internet is vast. It can be tough for the average, low level user to find the right resources to be active in their communities on the web. If they have to search out the information, will we lose that many more people? The newspaper is a one-stop shop for a community's needs. I think we need to really reflect on how things could really change with out newspapers. Is an online journalist bound to the same stringent fact checking and information searching and sourcing? From some things I have read, I really wonder. I have so many questions and concerns, but I don't even know where to begin.