How Newspapers are dealing with the trend in Online Journalism.
The emergence of the Internet as a medium for mass communication in the mid 1990's caught the majority of newspapers off guard. The area of print journalism was filled with an air of complacency and a feeling of comfort stemming from their position as the "only game in town." When the reality of the information super-highway hit, many newspapers were flustered to find an avenue to keep up with the quick developing internet information network. (Moses, "Houston we have a Solution").
Print journalism advertising revenues took the majority of the losses sustained by the publics interest in the Internet, more directly classified advertising of employment, automobile sales and real estate. A 1998 Newspaper Association of America Study found 19% of all recent homebuyers used the Internet as their main source of information. (Carlson, "Nibbling on Newspapers").
Job seeker sites such as, Monster.com have taken the biggest chunk out of newspaper-classified revenue and hence waged an unexpected battle with the publishers of newspapers around the world for the almighty advertising dollar. The New York Times Company, Times Mirror and the Times Tribune Company have joined together to form Careerpath.com to bring the battle to the home of online foes. (Carlson, "nibbling").
The newspaper industry has also responded to the Internet threat by joining the numerous other news sources in putting their information on the net via their very own online publications. Newspapers, armed with the knowledge that over 85% of adults look at a newspaper in the span of a week, broadened their horizons with online publications meant to satisfy the needs of the computer savvy or on the go reader. (Case, "The Last Mass Medium").
Web designers are an important part of today's news organizations just as staff reporters. While at one time graphics specialists were called upon to design ad layouts, they are now the backbone of online editions.