Quote:
Originally Posted by curves2000
As the newspaper business as a whole goes through a serious transition the simple fact is that MANY young people just dont believe they should pay for specific content when so much is available for free online. Its a fact! If its media, news, music, videos or sports that people try and find a lot of younger people just dont think the requrement to pay is indeed needed. Someone needs to produce this stuff and they aren't doing it for their health!
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It's not
"I don't need to pay for this content", it boils down to a lot of people saying:
"I DON'T NEED THIS CONTENT".
People aren't buying newspapers or even reading newspaper websites. Back in the day, the newspaper had a monopoly on your doorstep, on your kitchen table, at McDonalds, at the office, etc.
Today, there are too many competing streams of information, entertainment, and interaction that I don't need a newspaper just like I don't need cable television. I would have paid for both if they actually provided any content that was important to me.
I think a lot of young people feel this way as well. I have better things to do than find a giant table to splay out a difficult to read paper format that is more and more full of ads than content and whatever content is there ends up to be regurgitated stuff pushed through a re-write desk. I'm sorry I simply don't hold local papers or journalists in any high regard. Over the years, there hasn't been a single local newspaper story or investigative journalism piece that has been compelling enough to stick in my memory. I learn more about the City of Calgary operations by reading Bunk's threads on CP. I find out more about the Flames by looking for SureLoss posts. I learn more about local events and controversies by reading r/Calgary. The local papers simply don't have any currency to me.
Local journalism is a niche product that has increasingly lower demands. If people really want this then they should be prepared to pay for it and the business model must change.