Hard-headed realist Rupert Murdoch made international news recently when he forecast there would be no newspapers existing within 15 years.
Sadly, I think he was optimistic and would have been more accurate to have said five years for 90 per cent and a handful, in places like India, lingering on for at best another five years.
I say sadly as by dint of my age I’m a print media lover, they remaining the domain of the older generation.
This puzzles the younger generation, who rely totally on the internet and its immediacy. They’re right of course but life-long habits are not easily abandoned and I love the tactile aspect of print.
Newspaper circulations in New Zealand have dropped to about a tenth of what they were a decade back as their readership dies off.
They’re currently propped up financially by tourism advertising, mainly cruise ship voyages, plus others targeting the same market, such as funeral directors, fund managers and the like.
Our largest newspaper chain, Stuff, was bought for a dollar. Thirty years back it was valued in the billions.
Selling it was smart as it avoided redundancy payments. That aside it’s now joined the NZ Herald in going digital and sadly (for me) will not survive much longer in print.
That said it’s possible the dollar purchase could prove smart once print ceases and is replaced by digital.
But that’s on face value for there’s another huge problem facing it. That’s the cold hard fact that the majority of people under 30, no matter how well educated, have little interest in current affairs, lured as they are by the diverse attraction (to them) of the smart phone.
I’m constantly staggered by the mind-blowing ignorance of this demographic, notwithstanding their possession of university degrees.
I say this measurably. My assessment based on numerous examples of talking to say 21 year olds, fresh from university and armed with a degree, is their general knowledge, and particularly history, about equals my generation’s at aged 13.
Ignorance may seem like bliss for its possessors but it’s dangerous and makes people vulnerable to rabble-rousers.
A classic example is Trump. It’s mind-blowing that he became president on a host of counts but reflects what I’ve written above.
This article was originally published by No Punches Pulled.
