by Logan Mansfield

Created on: December 10, 2009

The digital age has provided some great benefits and some even greater challenges as to how to conform and adapt in a world that is progressing and changing daily. The 8-Track tape was killed off by the tape. The tape was killed off by the CD. The CD was killed off by MP3. There were thousands of signs that the digital era was going to drastically change how we did everything from music, movies, and now newspapers and books. The internet is simply one of the many cogs in the digital machine that replaces old technology. There are two reasons as to why the internet brought about the death of print journalism: Free News Online and Blogs.

When the news became more accessible and free on the internet, newspapers began to become less relevant and wanted. The reasoning is fairly simple. Why should I pay for something that I can just find out about online? The internet is much more accesable now than it once was, not to mention faster. You can go to your local library and search the web for free. You can get it on your laptops and cell phones. It's everywhere. You can find news faster, easier, and in much greater quantity than from one newspaper. I can go to five different news syndicates to read different articles about the same story. I can scour their websites for free and find out more than paying to read it off of a large, inconvenient newspaper. The internet is also much more interactive than a newspaper. I can write comments on journalists posts. I can discuss with other people across the country. I can share and forward articles that I like to friends and family to read. The options and possibilities are endless. When news became free, newspapers became irrelevant.

The dawn of the blog could certainly be considered the proverbial nail in the coffin for print journalism. When the blog gained in legitimacy it pronounced the end of elite journalists dominating the scene and herald in the everyman to take control. Anyone could make a blog, anyone could write about anything, and if you knew what you were doing you could get thousands to read, comment, and get involved in your own blog. This everyman amateur journalism is rather appealing for most people. They can read from thousands of different perspectives and it once again doesn't cost them a dime. They can also start their own to give their own thoughts and perspectives, much like is happening on Helium. Blogs most assuredly created a democracy to journalism. This democracy destroyed the deferential system of print journalism.

The internet with free news and blogs is certainly killing print journalism. However, I think on a side note what really killed print journalism was the Newspapers and journalists that didn't see it coming a mile away. They didn't decide early on to adapt to an ever growing technology. Instead of accepting new technology and forcing it to conform to their own system, they allowed the technology to overtake them, make them play by its rules, and ultimately slowly kill their own system. There were plenty of warning signs along the way that print media was going the way of the dinosaur, but they didn't care and they wanted nothing to do with it. Their fate was in their own hands. In the end, the internet took control, unleashed free news and blogs and brought an end to print journalism.

Learn more about this author, Logan Mansfield.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.