The Observer, December 2, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12
Death of the print newspaper may be on the horizon, but not for college print media
According to newspaper readership surveys conducted over the past 10 years and a few anonymous posters on home.cwru.edu, you're not reading this. You'd rather get your commentaries from the angry iconoclasts on slashdot.org, your oversexed roommate, or somewhere other than paper. After all, the paper newspaper already has one foot planted firmly in its grave, at least if you believe the doomsayers. Recent figures show increasing declines in paper readership. RIP Paul Krugman and Ann Coulter, Bryan Hickman and Jeffrey T. Verespej, Garfield and Quilloquium; the world is a sadder place without you. After all, why be up-to-date when you can be up-to-the-minute surfing the Internet?
A generational gap is also forming, much to the delight of trees everywhere. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently found that only 23 percent of people under 30 read a newspaper, compared with 60 percent of older people. In other words, college students aren't reading newspapers anymore, especially at a school like Case, where students are known for their (ahem) technological acumen. Sad as it is to say, the more technology evolves, the more people will question the need for news media that you can use in a pinch if you run out of toilet paper, and that includes The Observer.
Are paper newspapers obsolete? Let's face it, there are quite a few things you can do with paper that ye olde Internet can't handle. Google can do quite a bit, but it can't pro-tect your expensive new hairstyle from the harsh Cleveland elements. Cnn.com can't line the cages of your small pets when you are done with it. You can't make spiffy sailor's hats out of fark.com. And anyone who has ever gotten a birthday or Christmas present from me knows that newspaper makes for unparalleled gift wrapping.
Maybe that's part of the problem for large newspapers today – they're trying to be everything to everyone. A 20-page newspaper can't possibly compete with the million Think about it: if you're interested in hearing opinions on the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, you aren't going to pick up a newspaper and look for a review.
As we mourn the death of the paper newspaper it's only fitting to examine some of the media whose death knells have sounded before it. There's radio: it's hard to believe that once upon a time, people used to listen to AM radio for news before television came along; books: people used to read them before the "paperless society" movement started in 1985; or even stone carvings: so heavy and awkward, it's a good thing our memorials and gravestones switched over to parchment.
How did they survive? They found a niche, something that they can do better than any other type of media. Media have a history of adapting to where it is most useful when a new technology comes around. The paper newspaper isn't dying, it's streamlining, metamorphing into something online media can't compete with.
Enter the local campus newspaper. It's already found a niche. It's everywhere you go on campus, it's small, portable, and durable, and it doesn't require a laptop to read during that boring physics class that you can't stand. It's simple, almost a Friday morning habit – leave class, see a stack of Observers, take one, move along. Every week, 5000 copies are distributed throughout the Case campus and the vast majority are claimed. That translates into over one paper per undergraduate student. Therein lies the strength of paper media on college campuses, and the reason why The Observer and other college newspapers will remain primarily print publications for many years to come: it gets the word out to as many people as possible. Whether any of those people read beyond the headlines is another subject for another commentary.
In January, The Observer will launch a new and improved Web site which will enable the Case community (and alumni living far away like me) to better reap the benefits of online media. It will enhance and complement the print edition, not kill it. So I'd cancel the funeral if I were you... paper just might pull through.
