New News

The news finds you now. Gone are the days of having to sit and wait for the morning paper or even the 10 o’clock news. Now you can have it on demand as it happens.

According to Nick Heynen, social media coordinator for The Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal, the face of the news is changing.

“People are falling out of the habit of reading the newspaper.” said Heynen. “We are losing people.”

The loss of newspaper subscribers is leading to tough times in the industry. However, that doesn’t mean that people are no longer interested in hearing the news. 

“More people ever are reading more news then ever.” said Heynen, But less money is being made on it. “We’re not really in the news industry, we are in the advertising industry.” According to Heynen print ads make significantly more money compared to internet ads.

With the new emergence of social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook people aren’t just simply fed the news as they were with a paper copy. They now have the opportunity to talk back. 

Some journalists are even going as far as to let their followers provide suggestions on early drafts of stories. Even a few years ago that was simply unheard of. Social media is here to stay.

Now, the question is are the newspapers?