At the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and at any place where "media" is discussed, not an hour goes by without the "Newspaper Death Watch" mentioned at least once. Of course this is referring to the near-free-fall drop in circulation of the major newspapers, along with the dramatic decline in advertising revenue, with recently even one major newspaper ending its print operations altogether.
There is not some sort of epidemic causing newspapers to drop dead one by one all around the country. No, Instead, it's "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." For those not well versed in Sci-fi B-Movies of the 1950's, The film is about a town that is invaded by seeds that have drifted to Earth from outer space. The seeds replace sleeping people with perfect physical duplicates grown from plantlike pods, while their human victims turn to dust. Your friend falls asleep and a few hours later a 'clone' grows and walks around living your friend's life, while his body turns to dust.
Newspapers, the print version, fell asleep more than 10 years ago and have been dying, destined for dust. Meanwhile, Earth was invaded by the Internet and the web propagated faster than anything any alien could have created. Print newspapers may be turning into dust, but their alien clones are alive and well on the web. Nielsen (the same folks who measure TV ratings) reported yesterday that in the 3rd Quarter of 2008 newspaper web sites attracted 68.3 million unique visitors - which is 41.4% of all Internet users. This is a record number that reflects a 15.8% increase over the same period last year. Newspaper Web site visitors generated an average of just over 3.5 billion page views per month throughout the quarter, an increase of 25.2 percent.
These are extraordinary numbers - 41.4% of all Internet users, and a traffic increase of 25%, And this is for an industry that has been described as inept, clueless and clinging to life. We should all be so inept and capture 41% of Internet users. Print may be dying, and turning into dust. Walking around in their place - alive, awake and energized - are the newspaper web sites. This is good news for the newspapers, however, just like the movie plot, the new versions are merely duplicates. They have a short lifespan, and once people realize they are merely clones, they run away screaming. Newspapers don't need to be cloned on the web - they need to be reincarnated.
(more info from the Newspaper Association of America, and Nielsen Online)
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