VentureBeat reported on the “Death of Newspapers” with 19 of the top 50 US newspapers in the red. More readers than ever are going online. Only USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are staying above water with circulation up compared to previous years. Other newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Washington Times are all down in circulation. The journalism industry of today has sent journalists into new arenas. This trend began in the 1980s with the popularity of television and radio. Today, more than ever, people are looking online for their daily news, rather than picking it up outside their front door.

Google’s news feature allows each person to not only see the top stories on the web, but personalize their news page to see what they prefer. If one doesn’t want to see international news, they can choose to only see news about the US. Good for diversifying views and categories of news? Probably not. Good for those who hate seeing news about sports when they could care less? Yes. More and more people are attracted to this “news personalization” feature offered by many top sites.

YouTube often has popular videos of speeches and news stories within hours of being aired on the news. Why read a transcript of an important address when you can watch it, live in color, whenever you want? Politicians even have channels where they can post videos to connect with the online community. Not surprisingly, Obama already has over 54 million views. There’s very little room for newspapers to compete with this kind of technology.

Even more importantly, the biggest competitor to the Op-Ed is the basic blog. The Huffington Post presents the ultimate Internet newspaper with news, blogs and video – entirely online. TechCrunch, only founded in 2005, reviews Internet products and companies. It would be very difficult for a newspaper, seemingly stuck in the past, to cover new products and innovations by the minute.

The “Death of Newspapers” has a unique exception. La Opinión is the country’s fastest growing paper. Its connection to the community, something that mainstream newspapers do not have to fall back on, is the reason for its continued success. The Hispanic community has proven to take on technology very quickly, but until newspapers make more strides to keep their readers, we will be seeing a continued direction into the blogosphere.

Related News:
Newsroom Cuts Send Journalists in New Directions
La Opinión Is Country’s Fastest Growing Paper

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by Cristina Cordova