It used to be common for countless Americans to read a newspaper found daily on their doorstep. For years, this remained the main source for news. Times are changing, and with a saturated online news market, many people are looking elsewhere for news.
The New York Times claims that newspapers nationwide have recently seen a weekly circulation drop at an average of 9 percent; the San Francisco Chronicle as high as 23 percent.
The newspaper industry has also seen some well-established papers collapse, such as the Rocky Mountain News in 2009 after 150 years of circulation. With more and more people relying on the internet for their news fix, what can newspapers do to stay alive?
Mashable.com has a list of twelve things that newspapers could do to survive, and they include:
- Linking to outside news sources to contextualize current events.
- Reporting in real-time; utilizing websites like Twitter.
- Getting the reader involved with the story, especially with social media.
- Restructuring the newspaper to reflect a startup business than a corporate setting.
News Corporation’s CEO Rupert Murdoch told an audience of Australian TV viewers in 2008 that newspapers will remain in existence in the future, but they must re-evaluate how they serve their readers to survive. He claims that newspapers can brand their image onto cross-platform outlets and implement innovative features such as utilizing mobile devices and RSS feeds.
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