Read it Or Weep

You want to read my articles:
http://kingstoncourier.co.uk/content/raid-recovers-%C2%A310000-fake-sex-drugs
http://kingstoncourier.co.uk/content/kingston-rejects-changes-planning-laws

The End of the Affair: Is our passion for print over?

As long as I can remember, newspapers have been part of my life. Sundays are empty without coffee and The Observer. I like the feel of a paper, I like spreading it over a table. You can’t do that with a webpage or app – or at least not yet, but I’m sure the guys at Apple are working on it.

But all this week, I’ve been reading figures that suggest print is dead. The Guardian lost £44.2 million last year, circulation figures are down and local newspapers are disappearing. Roy Greenslade has been chronicling the deaths of local newspapers. It makes for grim reading; in the UK, 32 regional weekly titles closed last year (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/dec/24/newspaper-closures-downturn).

But it’s not all bad news. While apps that allow readers to download digital newspapers are being hailed as the future, not everyone owns a tablet or smartphone, and not everyone has internet access. A recent report by the World Association of Newspapers World Press Trends showed that 2.5 billion people read newspapers in print, while 600 million read them online. Print circulations are rising in Asia and the Middle East and more people worldwide read newspapers than use the web (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/more-people-read-newspapers-worldwide-use-web).

The current crisis in print journalism has also prompted developments in self-publishing. Newspaper Club has been helping people become self-published journalists since 2009. This online company offers people the opportunity to print their own papers in much smaller runs than the traditional newspaper.  Print runs range from 1 to 5,000, and Newspaper Club printed 500 different newspapers in 2010 (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/07/06/custom-printing-can-onlin_n_888080.html). They’re unlikely to single-handedly save print, but it’s something good to come out of this crisis.

So while journalism is in a state of flux, I’m not sure we’re done with print. EBooks, rather than killing the physical book, co-exist with and feed into it, with books that start as eBooks being produced in print (such as Fifty Shades of Grey). So why should the app or website mean the end for print, rather than just another exciting way to get your news?