The American writer and intellectual Gore Vidal once said that “half of the American people have never read a newspaper and half never vote in presidential elections. I hope it’s the same half.”
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Well, if the trend continues, pretty soon nobody will be reading newspapers; and if you think the guy with the raccoon on his head is a travesty, well, it can only get worse. And don’t forget that the same principle applies here, all the way down to local government elections.
Newspapers, at least as we know them now, are on the verge of extinction. Around the world they have become victims of technology and seem to be in terminal decline.
Social media gate crashers have stolen readers and changed consumer behavior, but most importantly have snaffled advertising, which is the life blood of commercial media.
So newspapers respond by trying to get by with less staff, which results in an inferior product, which of course leads to lower sales and the cycle continues to its inevitable conclusion.
And all the optimistic talk about digital revenue being the saviour of newspapers is just hot air. At the end of the day, digital revenue is an illusion. It`s just not there in sufficient quantity and isn’t going to be.
And that`s bad news for any democracy, because without an informed electorate, the handwriting is on the wall for our body politic. Democracy is doomed.
But it is heartening to know that we’ve been here before. Eighty five years ago, on the 15th of June 1933, the Gilgandra Weekly contained the following plea to readers: “Has anyone died, eloped, married, divorced, left town, embezzled, had a fire, had a baby, had a party, sold a cottage, broke a leg, had twins, struck it rich, been arrested, come to town, bought a business, stole a cow, or the neighbour’s wife, fallen from an aeroplane, or bought a motor car?” – you could add, what’s the council up to, who the cops caught DUI etc – “That's news.”
And what about the mighty Goulburn Post, which first appeared in 1870 as the Goulburn Evening Penny Post and Southern Counties General Advertiser. Well, it’s the old adage: use it or lose it.
While journalists like Louise Thrower and David Cole and colleagues continue to serve the community, they deserve our support. Pay the buck sixty and stop whining.
Don Fischer, Goulburn (reader, contributor, advertiser)
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