Happy Birthday USA Today
Growing up in a suburb of Cincinnati, we had the daily Cincinnati Enquirer and a weekly township newspaper for local news. High school students thrived on who made the front page of the sports section. If you made the front page of the whole paper, you were big news for that day. Although the limelight of being on the front page isn’t extinct, trends are shifting more towards the latest discussion on high school blog sites for local sports and gossip. From this, I feel the predicted down fall of newspapers stated in the USA Today article will affect local newspapers before taking a stab at national news. (Article found here: Download file )
Another observation I found interesting was the lean towards customized Internet homepages. Many people choose to include the local weather and the national news that pertains to them. Instead of concluding that printed newspapers are doomed as they run against online editions, when will printed newspapers become customizable? The Wall Street Journal comes stamped with my address. I typically leaf through the paper looking for headlines that interest me and the rest is rubbish. Some may argue that it would be nicer not having to sift through the paper each day to search for their news interests. These people could adjust what sections are delivered to their house. This would also assist the advertising sales of a newspaper knowing exactly what houses are seeing what ads.
In conclusion, the printed newspaper isn’t going to fade out with in the next 25 years. Like all other media, adjustments will need to be made in order to satisfy customers.