Final Question 4

Simply put, newspapers are failing and television news operations are downsizing because technology has made their formats increasingly obsolete. With media moving from television and print to computers and cell phones, people no longer need to sit down for the 5:30 news or pick up a morning newspaper—everyone already knows. John Koblin's article from the New York Observer puts it well:

"In June, Russ Stanton told MediaBistro that morale was starting to reappear at the paper and that people were 'focused solely on doing great work and good stories and terrific journalism.' And then Sam Zell threw all that out the window the next day. 'What has become clear as we have gotten intimately familiar with the business is that the model for newspapers no longer works,' he said in a memo" (2008

It's no longer a matter of trying hard enough—the traditional way of running a newspaper cannot survive today. Newspapers and local news stations must think outside of the box into a new way to stay afloat.

I don't plan an immediate future in journalism, but eventually I hope to go into political commentary, either online or on the radio. Those industries are adapting to the new way that the public gets the news, so I feel relatively safe in those careers. In the future, I hope to be blogging part-time on political subjects for myself or a small start-up blogging organization.