News organizations — especially newspapers — are in financial trouble. Our textbook makes that clear in Chapter 3 (“The Media Business”) and Chapter 6 (“Newspapers and the News”). And newspapers’ economic problems are addressed in several of the Week 6 supplementary links, such as “Who Killed the Newspaper?”; “Yes, the News Can Survive the Newspaper”; “Dying Gasp of One Local Newspaper”; and John Oliver’s take on “Journalism.”
In this online discussion, we want you to:
* Explain what is causing newspapers’ financial problems.
* Discuss at least three ideas that have been floated to help news organizations survive. They include:
Erecting paywalls and requiring readers to buy a subscription to access their content.
Developing new forms of advertising such as native ads.
Converting the news organization from a business to a nonprofit and seeking donations from individuals and foundations.
Getting grants and other funding from the government.
Reducing costs — for instance, by using more citizen journalists and college journalists.
And any other ideas you can think of.
* Offer your opinion on whether any of these ideas would work. What do you think news organizations should do to increase revenues? Or do you think it’s hopeless — that the news business is doomed?
* And if you think the news business is doomed, how would that impact society?
In your essay, you must cite at least three sources. Follow APA style for your citations. List your sources at the end of your essay, and use in-text citations in the body of your essay. The sources may include our textbook; academic studies you have found online; and news articles that support points you’re trying to make. It’s OK to use the articles I’ve mentioned above.
Your answer must be 500-700 words, not including citations. Your posting should be of high quality, both in content and style; it should have few if any typographic or mechanical errors (grammar, spelling or punctuation). I strongly urge you to write your answer in a Word document instead of typing it directly into the Blackboard reply window. Then copy your answer from the Word document and paste it into Blackboard. That way, you won’t lose your work if your Blackboard connection goes down. Don’t worry if your essay loses its formatting when you copy the text from Word and paste it into Blackboard.
Unlike a formal research paper, it’s OK to use first person in this essay — but only in the section in which you present your personal opinion: “I believe that paywalls …”
