Will the Times print edition be dead in May?

The most impressive thing I learnt at KOMU last Friday is from the producer Jason Bent. He told me he made it a habit to watch news programs in bigger market and learn how those reporters tell a story. He also gave me the name of his idol: Tom Costello, an NBC Nightly News reporter. His work is not only with high-quality, but also with consistency of quality. It reminds me something I read in Shook’s book: There is no bad story, only bad reporters. Back in China, when I started to learn journalism as a sophomore, I was told to tell good stories. But how? It is a question that I haven’t figured out yet. I don’t believe there is a certain template that fits all kinds of stories. So currently, there are two things I can do: 1. practice; 2, read more and watch more.

On last week’s Time Magazine, there is one article discussing newspaper industry: How to save your newspaper.

It says, “It is now possible to contemplate a time when some major cities will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network-news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters.”

Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in last October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. The paper’s future doesn’t look good. What is worse, the Atlantic even predicts the Times print edition will be dead this May.

NYT, the newspaper I read on a regular basis will disappear? I even don’t want to accept the possibility. I would feel heartbroken if it comes true. But giving a second thought, I find I read the print version less and less. As is often the case, I read the news stories on my laptop. For readers all over the country, why don’t they choose the free media instead of the traditional paper?

Most likely, The Times will move to internet-only distribution. Although, The Web site, nytimes.com, has already have a 20 million users for the month of last October, making it the fifth-ranked news site on the Internet.

Then what about the traditional TV media? What is their future? If I will be a TV reporter in 2 years, what kind of industry change I am going to go through? In Missouri School of Journalism, “convergence” is more and more popular. Our Broadcast 2 class requires us to write a web-version of every story we cover. Those all seem like dangerous signs that we are going to experience some jolt and pain.

My first Package is about the overpass on the Providence Road in Columbia. Its fact is pretty simple: the city of Columbia is going to redo the overpass. It is not a “hard” story apparently, but I like it because in the process of shooting the story, I found some new facts and met Robert King, the disabled man living in that area. He was very nice to tell me his feelings, thoughts and suggestions. Also, he showed me how dangerous it is to go across the busy street. You can tell it is really dangerous from the “WOW” uttered by the viewers of this B-roll. Without the chance of covering this story, never will I notice there is no handicapped accessory on the overpass, nor will I realize what kind of inconvenience the old bridge brings to disabled people.