Four months into 2009, and already it will be remembered as a watershed year for journalism, media and newspapers.

The Rocky Mountain News closed and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went online only.
Other newspapers have undergone bankruptcy such as The San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun Times and the Miami Herald.

Is this the end of traditional journalism as we know it or an evolutionary change in the way the public informs itself?

According to the Newspaper Association of America’s statistics, in 1988 the daily circulation of paid newspaper subscriptions totaled 62.6 million.

In 2008, circulation dropped to 53.1 million, a 15 percent decrease.

On the other hand, the U. S. Census Bureau has reported a 22 percent increase in the population of the United States in the same time period.

My family hasn’t subscribed to a newspaper since I was 16. That’s when I started reading news online though RSS feeds such as Google Reader.

I now read the New York Times, The Times-Picayune and The Miami Herald on a daily basis.

Print newspapers are a great gateway “drug” for encouraging people to read newspapers when they’re young, but the print model is slowly dying and changing.

Media companies need to wake up and smell the silicone.

If they want to survive in new media world, traditional media must appeal to young people who want their information in a certain way.

The original intent of this editorial was to lament how younger generations have completely abandoned something that was both good and noble.

Then I came to the realization that every previous generation does something to upset the generation in power.

Personal technology has been our great cultural revolution and changed the way we view the world.

Traditional journalism needs to be involved in this change, or else they will be completely shut out and made irrelevant. If this were to happen, it would be a shame.

Many newspaper companies saw this revolution coming and did nothing to change it.
The recent economic downturn and the drying up of advertising money have only sped up the process.

Some papers saw the change, and decided to do something about it. The Rocky Mountain News was supposed to be the premiere model for a newspaper of the future. At the hands of an awful economy and an unsupportive parent company, it folded.

The New York Times is also rapidly evolving from giving its columnists blogs to offering programs that turn newspaper data into search-able and graphic databases.

Newspapers must be proactive and not act like deer in headlights. There is a bright future for seeking and sharing information, but right now the establishment needs to survive and thrive on this new model.

Both the old and new media can and should work and learn from one another.

Sergio Andres Lobo-Navia is a philosophy junior. He can be reached at [email protected].