Background

For thousands of years newspapers in some form or another have been created to keep populations aware of current events, and as time has gone by their format and availability has evolved. All different news sources have begun to post their information online, from The New York Time?s to FOX News to numerous blogs about the latest affairs globally, nationally and locally. Though, the surge in information that has become obtainable online is reeking havoc on the sales of print newspapers. ?Declines ranged from twenty point six percent for the New York Post, to a slight four tenths of a percent for The Chicago-Sun Times? in circulation between 2008 and 2009. (Arango, 2009) Due to the recent surge in news outlets posting their news coverage online for no cost, many are becoming more and more seduced by the idea of looking to the World Wide Web for their current events, rather than paying for a newspaper. Many, particularly people of younger generations are very much used to being able to read what is occurring in the world via the internet for free, and because of this only ?eighteen percent of eighteen to thirty-four? year olds claim that they would be willing to pay one to ten dollars for news published online. (Dolliver, 2010) This flood in news sources turning to the Internet as an outlet for information is not only occurring in the United States of America, but throughout the world. Even within countries such as Saudi Arabia there has been such an increase in the use of online journalism that newspapers are not selling as well as they have in the past. Though in a way it is lucky that ?the year 2009 was full of unfortunate events and this helped some of our [their] struggling local newspapers to sell,? the internet is still putting a damper financially on their newspaper industry. (Sidiya, 2009) Print newspapers are not only losing revenue from the decrease in the amount of people purchasing newspapers, but also through advertisements. Many companies, as well as people who place ads in the classifieds are drawing back from purchasing space within the print newspaper and turning to online advertising. Many whom, at one point would place an ad in say, The New York Time?s to sell a couch have begun using web sites such as craigslist.com or ebay.com, hoping to increase the amount of people viewing the ad to more of a world stage as opposed to just the location in which the print newspaper circulates. Due to this loss in revenue, many news outlets are beginning to charge a subscription fee in order to view their online articles. This ?reaffirms the idea that journalism has value.? (Ramirez, 2010) Charging for online subscriptions to newspapers will allow for many news sources to continue informing the world as well as reinforcing the idea that reporting takes hard work and commitment, and that the news press makes a significant contribution to society. Just as with many aspects of life, over time the newspaper industry has immensely evolved and with this a whole new set of challenges must be faced and conquered.