Question about that old 'the internet will kill newspapers' prediction

I keep seeing old articles from the 90s saying the internet would completely kill off local papers by 2005, but my town's paper is still printing 3 days a week and has more readers online than ever. Meanwhile big city papers folded fast but the small ones adapted with hyperlocal coverage and paid newsletters. Do you think the prediction was just wrong, or did the industry actually find a workaround that wasnt obvious back then?

2 comments

2 Comments

beth_hunt10d ago

Do you think the hyperlocal stuff is actually saving them, or is it more about older readers just refusing to let go? My town's paper still runs a printed police blotter and obituaries that nobody under 50 seems to care about, but they claim those two sections alone pay for the whole operation. Is that the real workaround - boring but essential stuff that people actually pay for?

richard_roberts8010d ago

Nah, I think the prediction was just too dramatic. Small papers found a way to survive by being useful in a way big ones never could.