Newspapers

The future of newspapers is cloudy, with overall readership slowly declining in most developed countries due to increasing competition from television and the Internet. The 57th annual World Newspaper Congress, held in Istanbul in June 2004, reported circulation increases in only 35 of 208 countries studied. Most of the increases came in developing countries, notably China and India.
A report at the gathering said circulation declined by an average of 2.2 percent across 13 of the 15 countries that made up the European Union. One growth area is the distribution of free daily newspapers, which are not reflected in the above circulation data. Led by the Metro chain of newspapers, they grew 16 percent in 2003. In 2009, newspapers in major U.S. cities have already met their demise in such places as Philadelphia and Denver, with some major West Coast newspapers also facing a grim fate. Several large U.S. newspapers declared bankruptcy or ended print editions in 2009, and the survivors are floundering.
Newspapers also face increased competition from internet sites such as Craigslist for classified ads, especially for jobs, real estate, and cars, the advertising of which has long been key sources of newspaper revenue as well as from online only newspapers. Already in the UK a newspaper called Southport Reporter started out in 2000 and remains online as a recognized newspaper, but only published online and others now exist throughout the world. This opens the debate as to what constitutes a newspaper.
Since newspapers began as a journal (record of current events), the profession involved in the making of newspapers began to be called journalism.In the yellow journalism era of the 19th century, many newspapers in the United States relied on sensational stories that were meant to anger or excite the public, rather than to inform. The restrained style of reporting that relies on fact checking and accuracy regained popularity around World War II.Criticism of journalism is varied and sometimes vehement. Credibility is questioned because of anonymous sources; errors in facts, spelling, and grammar; real or perceived bias; and scandals involving plagiarism and fabrication.