Almost everyone working at a newspaper has heard a similar comment, often from a family member or good friend.
It is a version of: “Aren’t newspapers dead?”
For me, it was my stepson who said this when I took a job as a reporter at The ߣÄÌÉçÇø in 2014.
He also said something about no one reading the news, but by then, I was biting the inside of my cheek so hard it was causing me real pain and distracting my brain from hearing him.
Despite what you may have heard, news is not dead — far, far from it.
In fact, it is fair to say that more people read this publication than at any time in the history of ߣÄÌÉçÇønewspapers.
We average about 500,000 stories read per month, according to Google Analytics.
We can guarantee that there weren’t that many views of a ߣÄÌÉçÇønewspaper even during print newspapers’ heyday (between 1940 and the mid-1980s when print papers were king).
Last week, ߣÄÌÉçÇømedia Canada — the national association representing the Canadian news media industry — on national newspaper readership.
It showed four out of five people in Canada (83%) read newspaper content weekly.
The difference is in how folks access news.
The report found that 97% of readers are accessing at least some of their newspaper content online.
The reason folks — like my stepson — think that newspapers are no longer in their prime is, ironically, because of bad press.
People are conflating the news of, for example, recent (they are all working from home now) with a lack of readership.
Some newspapers have a revenue problem, but they don’t have a readership problem.
ߣÄÌÉçÇø is not dead.
It is thriving, actually, thanks to readers like you.
If you have any questions related to news, reach out via [email protected].