As the Papers Fall

I'm watching a documentary about the New York Times and the demise of newspapers across the world. It's sad that something that has brought news to generation after generation is going under so quickly. In 2010 the Boston Globe was losing millions of dollars a week. One of the largest newspapers on the East Coast, and it is going into a free fall. The biggest reason these traditional media outlets are fading fast is because of social media. A terrorist attack in the middle east for example, can be trending on twitter twelve hours before the newspapers can say anything about them in print. The internet has made news instant, and newspapers just aren't instant.

This overlaps greatly with the declining record sales that is trending around the world right now. With more and more record stores and record labels going out of business, the internet is wreaking havoc on all these business' that have flourished for so many years. The ability to share and connect with people instantly has taking away the need for traditional sources of anything. The whole world of media has been flipped on its end over the past few years, and it has been a long time coming. Media is a technology business, and technology like a printing press or a compact disc is just becoming a thing of the past. TV is getting to be the same way. Cable companies are realizing now that if all TV shows are online, there is no point for people to be paying for cable anymore, so they need to figure out how they are going to deal with that, or they will become dinosaurs like The Rocky Mountain News in Colorado, which had to close its doors last fall. Technology has been taking over our lives for the last 10 years, and we are reaching a pivotal time in our technological growth, where everything is accessible from both mediums. It won't stay like this for long, so cherish your hard print newspapers while you can, because Ra McGuire of Trooper said it best: We're here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can't shine everyday.