Chapter 9

Reading about the decline of the printed newspaper is tragic.  Living among this heart-wrenching affair is what I would imagine it would be like to watch the dinosaur’s begin to disappear.  At my house we have a subscription to the Los Angeles Times, the USA Today, and the Orange County Register.  I have been surrounded by news papers my entire life, and I have grown not only accustomed to, but fond of the clutter that only three read-through newspapers can bring to any kitchen table.  Being a college student has unfortunately made me part of the statistic of Americans who don’t read a newspaper on a daily basis, but I don’t have my own street address so I think that I am okay for now.

As disheartening as it may be to witness the decline of the printed word, it does make sense.  While Seitel points out that many newspaper editors have noticed that while print circulation has gone down, online subscription has skyrocketed.  That is probably the case, but I would imagine that many more people have discarded their papers in favor of the search engine.  I personally have taken up to perusing through either CNN or Fox news, locating stories that interest me, and then I Google the rest of the story.

This additional emphasis on the Internet provides just about everybody that operates a blog, manages an online column, or real reporters with more importance than ever before.   The way that Google decides which search hit comes up first is through site traffic, so if there is a popular blogger that has bolstered a small army of followers (think Perez Hilton) then suddenly his or her opinion becomes valued and taken seriously.  As disgusting as it is that some foul, obnoxious, superficial creature like Perez can obtain a “respectable” reputation (the quotations are only for him there are plenty of others that have done a great job), it just highlights the kind of power that reporters hold now.  As a public relations professional, one would need to be able to forge a working-friendly relationship with nearly anybody that presented a column.  I feel like that would almost be like working at Disney Land, where employees are forbidden to frown!

Sorry to do this to y'all but it just proves my point even more