Don’t fight your love for Facebook

It seems to be no secret that newspaper circulation is down.  When it is so easy to search for news online it seems like less readers are taking the time to sit down in the morning with their coffee and a newspaper.  According to the first article of this week’s readings the current circulation for print newspaper is the lowest it has been since the 1940’s.  Right now newspapers are faced with options that include increasing prices, or to start to charge or increase prices for online uses.

In the Perez-Pena article it says that the Wallstreet Journal’s circulation is up slightly because they sell an online subscription.  This offers convenience for customers who don’t have time to pick up a paper or don’t want to have a paper delivered.  It also provides readers with more of a selection because they have more papers to choose from.  I don’t think this is necessarily the solution because not everyone would be willing to pay.  However a lot of people would be willing to pay for respectable journalism rather than depending on free sites that were less reliable.

The Web 2.0 Summit article brought up a lot of important issues about print newspapers as opposed to online sources and advertising.  Currently the New York Times circulation is stable.  The important issue in these discussions is not to fight the internet.  Newspapers need to figure out how to work with the internet rather than resent what it has done to their circulation figures.  There still is an appreciation for quality journalism as the article points out.  Right now newspapers just need to figure out how to innovate their print newspapers and online sites to move forward.

Online advertising is important to just about every business.  The goal is for newspapers to appeal to major companies in order to stay afloat despite declining print circulation.  The problems discussed in the Online Rally article is how online newspapers can be more appealing to advertising.  The problem is that most newspapers are read by such a wide audience that products who are more target audience specific are hesitant to pay the expensive costs to advertise in online newspapers.  Again the issues raised in this article are obstacles that newspapers need to focus on how they sell advertising space.  Newspapers need to find a balance with print and online advertising, along with what businesses they should be selling their advertising space to.

Teaching social media in the classroom? That’s just crazy talk! The article about how Journalism students need to use new media tools sounded oh too familiar.  In so many articles that I have read about social media things have been said such as, “the worst thing you can do with social media is to not use it,” or “use social media, but be responsible,” which I think were also brought up in this article.  Students need to explore social media tools and figure out how to use them to their professional advantage.  Tools such as Skype can be used for interviews and they allow journalism students to save money and still maintain a degree of face to face interaction with their sources.  Other tools such as Twitter allow journalist to obtain and share up to the minute information.  Also Facebook is an excellent way of networking and communicating with sources through messages, Facbeook chat, commenting, etc.  There is still a danger to look unprofessional on these sites which is why journalists should be careful on how they use these tools.

- Alexa

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