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The death of printed news

Culture

The death of printed news

For centuries the go-to source for news has been the humble newspaper, but as the world accelerates into the digital age and more consumers look to the internet for event coverage, does this mean the death of newspapers is upon us?

In June 2017 Ofcom ( the UK’s communications regulator) published a report that revealed how the U.K’s population consumed news in 2016.

The report shows an incredibly sharp slump of newspaper sales over the years, starting in 2013 when 40% of news consumers reported that they actively read a newspaper, fast-forward to 2016 and that figure dropped by 11%, revealing that only 29% of news consumers read the paper.

But this figure was somewhat predicted after NRS (National Readership Survey) revealed figures regarding newspaper circulation – the annual circulation of newspapers dropped from 9.2 million in 2010 to 6 million in 2016.

The majority of news consumers in the U.K. get their news from television, the figure was 69% in 2016 and for radio the figure was 33% in 2016.

Internet usage for news consumption reached 48% in 2016, but looking in closer detail at demographics, this figure is predominantly made up of the 16-24 age group, which accounts for 63% of all users that consume news online. As expected this demographic is much less engaged with printed news – only 14% of 16-24-year olds read the paper.

We asked the public how they consume their news, Jasmine Martins told JLDN: “I get most of my news through my phone, I get notifications from The Guardian and BBC. I’ve never really been much of a newspaper consumer, they seem to just publish hateful articles and honestly I don’t have energy to waste on reading any.”

Ibrahim Hussein also told us:“I consume news online and through newspapers, I like to have a broader perspective, you know. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with any of the content I’ll still read it, it’s quality journalism.”

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