OH! THE INTERNET IS
KILLING THE NEWSPAPER - Musa Namady Junior
INTRODUCTION
With
the spectacular advances of the digital technology, shaking the world, the
general impression is that the three century reign of newspaper is on the
decline. The decline has been widely debated as the newspaper industry has
faced down soaring newsprint prices, slumping of ads sales, and loss of much
classified advertising and precipitous drops in circulations.
In
recent years, the number of newspaper slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe
cutbacks has risen. There is risen use of personal computers, mobile phones and
tablets by individuals at home and in offices to access the news of the day
with ease and of lower cost, through the internet without necessarily going out
to a newspaper vendor to buy a copy.
This
paper is however, of the opinion that the coming of the internal has displaced
the publishing of newspapers.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
NEWSPAPER:
According to Tebbel (1979), newspapers
are simply organizations who devised together the news of what is happening in
the community, state, nation and the world.
Kundra
(2005) also defines a newspaper as a paper that is printed and distributed
daily, weekly, or at some other regular and usually short interval and which
contains elements of news, articles, features, editorials, advertising and
other matter regarded to be of current interest. He adds that the newspapers’
role is to find out fresh information on matters of public interest and relay
them as quickly and as accurately as possible to readers in an honest and
balanced way.
INTERNET:
According to Elanson (2005) cited in
Rabiu (2013), “the internet is a diverse set of independent networks,
interlinked to provide its users with the appearance of a single, uniform
network.”
The internet is the world wide,
publicly accessible network of interconnected computer network that transmits
data by package switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a
network of networks that consist of millions of smaller domestic, academic,
government, and business networks, which together carry various information and
services such as electronic mail, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages.
Having defined the two terms, it is
important to briefly see their historical development.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEWSPAPER
According to Rodman (2006), the first
newspaper appeared in China, printed on woodcuts, more than 1200 years ago.
However, printing press begins in
England in 1477 by the legendary printer, William Coxton. However, his efforts
would not have been successful if by 1440s, Johann Gutenberg of the German City
of Mainz Gad not Guented a printing machine.
Gutenberg is also credited with the
introduction of oil-based ink which was more durable than the water based ink,
used mostly by Romans and Egyptians. Having worked as a professional goldsmith,
Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of the metals he has learned as a
craftsman.
This invention greatly accelerated the
growth of a printing as a means of communication, as before then, in what is
referred to as the middle ages, the Egyptians were using symbols to
communicate, while the Romans were using wall Painting. The Greeks and Africans
were using the town crier.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INTERNET
It all started in 1960. Scientists of
the University of California, Los Angeles were ready for a critical experiment.
They had a computer and communication node, while colleague installed similar
equipment op to the coast in Mendo Park. They planned to test whether they
could link the two computers over a telephone lines to operate as one system.
The researchers began to tap in the message: log in to make the link. The
system crashed. That was the beginning of the internet revolution.
As noted by Hanson (2005), the in
internet is the recent of the mass media. It is still rapidly evolving and
changing, developing newer and better features every day. As explained by
Hanson (2005), the internet was largely limited to interpersonal communication
until 1991, within when Tim Berners-Lee release the World Wide Web as easy and
uniform way to access materials on the internet. Since then, the internet has
become a medium unlike any other because it is the only medium that
incorporates elements of interpersonal, group and mass communication. That is
how the internet started existing and since from that time, the internet has
been developing and the numbers users keeps increasing globally. A study shows
that more than 50 million of Americans log o to the internet to check for news.
The study further shows that only a mere 17% said they get their regular news
from printed newspaper.
The internet has nowadays became a
powerful media tool to such extent that media experts acknowledge that things
are changing, they warned about digging an early grave for the print media
(newspaper), saying that this power shift should be treated with caution.
However, both the internet and the
newspaper share certain similarities. This similarities would include:
1.
Top
news in both the newspaper and the internet are always highlighted and be
easily sported.
2.
Both
the internet and the newspaper news displays a lot of commercials.
3.
Both
news have their news under a genre. This means, online news would have links
for each genre and there would be different newspaper too for each genre.
4.
Similar
news are usually put on both online news and the newspaper.
5.
Both
the online news and newspaper always include the weather forecast, editorials,
letters etc.
Those are some of the
similarities that the newspapers share with the internet. Some of the
differences as newspaper will include:
1.
Online
news is updated immediately where as newspapers will be a day late.
2.
Online
news is more interactive with audio, video, visual effects and being able to
comment unlike newspaper that you can only look at pictures.
3.
Newspapers
would have less errors, as they are highly read through and edited whereas
online news may be too rushed.
4.
On
online news, you can go directly to the news you want you want by typing a key
word while in a newspaper, readers have to read briefly through the pages.
5.
Newspaper
would contain a specific number of news you want as it has limited space while
an online journalism has no any limitation on the available space.
In the course of our discussion
however, we have been making use of the word “Online Journalism” which is
indeed a complex term. It will therefore be good to know what online journalism
is.
What is Online Journalism?
Ganiyu and Akinretti (2011) describes
online journalism as the media share of digital revolution. It combines this
with the journalistic skills of repoting, editing and news productions,
features and programmes.
According to Seema Hasan, to get
online means to connect to the internet and to connect to the internet
according to her, you need a computer, which she says varies in different sizes
and purpose and an internet service provider which she says is the software you
require to get online.
The concept of online journalism has
continually been a great threat to the existence of the print media due to its
numerous advantages, forcing some newsprint job to be phase out. A report from
Agence France Press (AFP) indicates that 17,809 media jobs were eliminated in
the U.S in 2006 alone an increase of 88% compared to 2005 when 9453 were
announced (Seema Hasan 2013).
It is a worldwide phenomenon that
online media has taken the print media in almost all countries of the world.
Online media has taken edge over print in various fields including news and
information. Online has beaten print medium even in the consumer market.
In Nigeria for instance, the emergence
of the internet has grossly affect newspaper printing in the sense that,
because newspapers are not easily accessible in several communities, many
Nigerians living in areas that are not close to newspaper vendors access the content
of the papers online.
There are also the creations of online
newspapers with its network of reporters across the country, who reported any
event as it is breaking objectively, clearly, completely and concisely. This
online newspaper will include News24, Naij.com, Newsnow, etc.
Advantages of the Internet and How the
Internet Has Displaced the Need for Newspaper Publishing
Interactivity:
When comparing the newspaper and the internet news, interactivity is the clear
differential factor. Interaction allows
the reader to participate contributes to discussion boards, sends an e-mail to
the editor, commenting on a particular news story etc. Today, news organizations
are observing the critical role interactivity play in online journalism. The
objective is no longer text, but providing the reader with hypertext, story
links, multimedia links, images navigation menu, and a space for comments after
every story.
Variety/ unique source: Online journalism allows readers to obtain news from unique source other
than their local newspaper which can fabricate stories. This gives the readers
distinctive perspective on current events.
Immediacy: The
web newspapers are constantly being updated giving readers breaking news as it
happens. The concept of immediacy has forced many Nigeria newspapers to start
an online copies in order to be updating readers on what is breaking.
Virtually, all Nigerian newspapers have a website and a facebook, twitter,
instagram accounts which they use in pasting, sharing and updating news
stories. Example is The Nation newspaper with it website as www.thenationtiononline,ng. Readers can have access to the whole
publication through the address.
Live streaming
With the help of the internet, readers everywhere stream a video link and watch
how an event has taken place - thanks to youtube. Nigerians in the far
Maiduguri can use their interconnected mobile phones to stream live the
presidential inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari as president. Football lovers who
might not be opportuned to watch the UEFA but can come back later and stream
the match online and watch the same match.
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