Week 1: The downfall of newspaper subscription

Let me start my blogpost (the first one for this course) with one of the topics that is near and dear to me which is reading newspaper. The three part audio dialogue between Prof. Acito and Frisbie resonates very well with what I and my wife enjoy every morning which is getting up early in the morning and allocate some portion of our time reading the Wall Street Journal while enjoying our morning coffee.

Talking to many of our friends, two things have surprised us. The ability to read in general has almost become minimal. Instead, many of them spend time getting updates over their smart phone. While I am an avid follower of news and updates through my smartphone and Yahoo mail during the day, I believe that none of the electronic devices should displace newspapers. First off, newspaper reading regardless of ones' interest section (mine is the marketplace section in WSJ) gives more details and also gives you the ability to fold and read anyway you want. I work in the technology sector and I do know that the consumer market is certainly looking at flexible screens (OLED) that could perhaps one day get closer to newspaper type reading.

Now, when it comes to ads, I would lean more towards the digital space. For example, when one goes to Yahoo, it posts ads depending on your internet viewing profile. This is certainly something that helps an individual become interested in the shopping experience directly rather than persuing through a bunch of ads in the papers that caters to the ubiquituous locale, which instead I would rather spend reading articles in the paper instead of the ads. The only time I occasionally skim through the ads section in the newspaper is on Sundays on an infrequent basis such as Best Buy and Frys electronics etc.

Also, the power of the language comes from a good journalism, besides just news.

Here is one link from the NY times that discusses the newspaper circulation issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28paper.html