“What’s Really Wrong With Newspapers” provided a lot of reasons for the decline of the newspaper industry in the U.S. and I agree with the points made. It’s hard to argue with the fact that newspapers change their content to appeal to new readers and that they’re more in the business of desperately preserving what they have than trying to expand or change their papers for the better. These failures on the part of the newspaper industry contribute to keeping the greater part of our country uninformed and therefor hurt our democracy as a whole.

“No More Free Content” also makes many good points with regard to business in the news industry. I hadn’t really thought before of how much media content I consume is actually free for me. I did know that most revenue for newspapers comes from advertising but I didn’t really think about how the subscription fee is really just for delivery. However, no matter how free newspapers and AM and FM radio and TV news stations are, those newspapers still need to make money from advertising. It’s upsetting to think about newspapers losing their advertisers to the digital world and in turn putting out a smaller paper with less local content that is read by less people for more money per issue. The phrase “It’s a vicious circle” sums it up perfectly. The followup article adds a bit to the gloom by bringing up the point that digital media sources have an even greater advantage because they know how well their advertisements work and which ones work. Newspapers have to out on a limb and predict which of their ads are being noticed by readers and hope for the best, while getting fewer and fewer advertisers along the way.

“Newspaper Economics Online and Offline” brings up the point that the recession has also played a part in the decline of advertisement in newspapers because ads have become cheaper, which is a point that the other three articles didn’t directly make. The article also points out that since the average online news consumer only spends about 70 seconds a day on online news, and the average newspaper reader spends 25 minutes a day on the print version, advertisers will obviously still spend more money on a print ad than on a digital ad for the paper. Online advertising only accounts for 8% of a papers total revenue. It’s not much considering the fuss that’s made over it. At the end of the article the author advocates for all online news because of the 50% production cost it would save. It’s an interesting idea, and there is obviously good reason for this transition, but I hope it doesn’t happen entirely since I still like print copies of newspapers.

“What Does the Future Hold For Newspapers?” quotes John Strum, head of the Newspaper Association of America saying that the decline of advertising is moderating, which is almost comforting. However, the author of the article seems to think otherwise and attributes the “moderating” to the fact that online ad rates and online advertising in general fell last year, which also isn’t to the benefit of the newspaper industry, not that online advertising would make up for the gap anyways since as “Newspaper Economics Online and Offline” points out, online advertising is only 8% of a papers’ revenue. I agree with the the article when it says that too many news outlets treat digital versions of their publications the same way that they treat the print versions. Then there’s examples like the Wall Street Journal, which is practically backtracking. They obviously don’t get the whole digital media thing if they’re going to charge more for an iPad app than for both the print and online versions of their paper put together. It’s ridiculous, and even kind of funny.

These articles combined raise a lot of good questions that print and digital news outlets as well as advertisers should take into account when doing business. Although much digital news is still in very experimental stages, suggestions such as those brought up in this package of articles could help people in charge of print and digital news sources make better decisions regarding content and how to profit from their endeavors.