Alive, but How do I Win?: The Newspaper Edition

     Besides being used as training pads to soak up your pup’s pee, or being stuffed into stinky shoes to rid of its hideous odors, newspapers actually used to serve a great purpose and that was to give readers the news. Now it faces a challenging task…survival. What purpose does the newspaper have to be existent and how long will it duke it out against other mass media before the industry finally hangs up the gloves? 
     The newspaper has had a great list of opponents. First, the industry dealt with the
introduction of radio in the early 1900’s.  Now more recently, televisions, satellite
radios, and the increase availability of the internet have hit the newspaper
industry hard. With the internet, readers can get (FREE) multiple opinions from many
different news sites to prevent biasness quicker and cheaper than any local paper. All of
this information can be seen on a portable laptop or even a tiny blackberry
(cell phone.) But, somehow it’s still managed to survive all the hardships from these other forms of mass media, but I don’t know if it has much fight left. Papers have tried a lot of great techniques to stay in the game like adding color, switching to lighter stock weight, and decreasing font size, but it won’t be enough. No one can dodge the fact that large printing companies like The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, has had to cut back on work. (In L.A.’s case they have cut over 300 jobs in 2009.)

http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Total-Paid-Circulation.aspx

     The smart companies are the ones who have made the change in creating an internet
edition of its paper. Sadly, even that tells readers, that the companies are
not confident in their product and it seems like everyone is one the same “page”
and that the future of the newspaper will be just a memory.  
     Reading newspaper print is not very eco-riendly either, in an eco-conscious America, but according to one of the world's leading paper-makers, the impact of powering computers allegedly outweighs the impact of creating newsprint. "Reading a newspaper has a lower impact on global warming than reading the news online for 30 minutes," (according to Torraspapel's Paper.) I beg to differ though. He is one of the world's leading paper makers yes, but that's exactly the point, I'm sensing a biased opinion! The loss of the newspaper could be a positive thing despite it being a large part of American tradition. Think of all the trees that will get to live on a little while longer. The people are going to use the internet regardless.  Pretty soon we could get a definitive answer to the fate of the newspaper industry and it  could be the result of being knocked out.

Magazine Sales Down... Because of People like ME

          Are the magazine companies really accomplishing their job? You know, trying to get us excited about wanting to actually READ and view their work. It seems like lately those writers have been running out of ideas and are desperate to get us to grab those pages off the shelves once more. But, it’s not working and if you are as cheap as I am… the industry might not be selling paperbacks anymore. According to sources, magazines are losing their audience because of free media on the internet. Also, magazine companies are consolidating into large groups like other forms of media. (Media/Impact ninth edition.)

To me, I feel it’s even more than that. The media has been very influential to women and not in a good way. They are so hooked on changing their image, making women want that flat tummy or how to turn him on the best. But some of their covers show extremely lame captions. Let’s look at “Seventeen.” Their target, young females. On one of their covers it says, “200+ ways to get amazing hair.” “Is there really that many?!” That’s as far as I would probably go. Maybe it’s because I am a guy, but seriously does anyone care? I do see that it mentions “free perfume” maybe that will be a good present for someone. 

I'm scared to see what she looks like without  makeup.

Another cover has Kesha on it. Whoops I mean Ke$ha. You know, the dirty girl who (can’t) sings about guys wanting to touch her junk? She’s not much of a role model, but is this what we want our ladies to be like? Again, on the cover it has a huge number of tricks, 425 to be exact. I guess they have to fill the pages up with something. It also says “Ke$ha takes off her makeup & comes clean about her party girl past.” It wasn’t that long ago she was brushing her teeth with a bottle a jack…was it? The last thing that really caught my eye was the “are you addicted to dude drama?”…Now that sounds like Ke$ha.

The fact is people do not want to spend money on reading this junk. If you are smart like me you will go stand in line at Walmart and read it for FREE while you wait forever to checkout. These nonsense magazines cannot be worth the $5.00 or $56.00 subscription to People magazine. That’s too much wasted money. I don’t care how many free posters, tips, or samples you give us. Okay the free samples, maybe. There’s no reason for me to buy these magazines though when I can just go online. If I really want to know about something in the magazines, I can just go to Google and purchase the subscription. Besides, I am sure someone’s made a Youtube video of anything good “inside the pages” anyway. Did I mention you were reading this blog online?