Researchers and specialists spent the last years discussing the future of the printed press, and many regarded it as uttering its last breaths. Experts consider that the circulation of printed news is no longer viable in the first place, whether in view of the economic cost, or from the standpoint of environmental considerations, not to mention its completely broken relation with the new generations. In all cases, we notice that all discussions separate between journalism as a profession on the one hand, and the shape or the container of the journalistic content on the other hand, and the controversy is primarily focused on the container, be it traditional or electronic.
Researchers are diligently trying to find exits to save the future of the printed press, or rather to give it additional oxygen doses to revive it and keep it alive for some more time. Some say that newspapers will still retain the advantage of expanded news, considering that websites users are often only interested in headlines and the first paragraphs of news and news stories, which, objectively, are justifications that are not convincing because the electronic media flow is so tremendous that it no longer allows for a follow-up to extensive news stories, whether via the internet or through traditional printed press.
The first newspaper that fully entered the world of online newspapers is The American Reporter in 1995, and now there are more than 10 thousand fully electronic daily newspaper in the world, and the number increases very rapidly. In the Arab world, the newspaper Elaph was the first Arab newspaper of this kind, and was launched in 2001. There is also an accelerated Arab move from the paper world to cyberspace in parallel or fully. Indicators at this level are clear and reflect a global trend aiming at abandoning the paper in the world of journalism. But the irony brought by recent days is that, after nearly two weeks of the announcement of the stopping of the paper version of the famous British newspaper The Independent, Trinity Mirror declared the launch of a paper newspaper, which is the first of its kind in Britain in the last thirty years!!
Launching a paper newspaper in this atmosphere and conditions within these challenging factors, which combine against the traditional press formula, in itself constitutes an interesting professional challenge, worthy of follow-up. The newspaper New Day, which has been available in the UK markets since the end of last February, is a new formula of printed press, which represents a kind of professional innovation not only because it is new and looks for a carefully chosen slice of readers, but also because it has chosen to remain on paper only without a website, and to be present on social media for proliferation and expansion only, not for having a presence parallel to that of the paper version. I mainly liked the challenge that Alison Phillips, editor of the new newspaper, spoke with. She seems convinced that part of the decline in paper-based newspapers sales is not due to the fact that the paper lost its luster as a container to the press content, but because this content does not meet the aspirations of a certain segment of readers, and therefore she believes that New Day is aimed at this segment and can attract its attention again and push it to buy a paper newspaper!! The new British newspaper is betting on the reconquest of a certain segment among one million people that have stopped buying newspapers in Britain during the last two years, and its experience is worth follow up through research and scientific study because a lot of newspapers and magazines are moving at a high pace to stay in the online world only, the most recent of which is The Independent as I reported before, as its sales have declined over the last years, and it had to rely on its digital version only as of March 26.
It is interesting that The Independent turned into cyberspace when it was achieving sales of about 55 thousand copies per day, which are real numbers, not fake and not subject to manipulation, as it happens in many cases in other countries, while there are Arab magazines and newspapers that no longer have a real existence in the world of journalism, be it paper-based or electronic, and they are still published, just to stay, or even because they are burdened with dozens of journalists recruited in “government” jobs, which prevents these magazines and newspapers from just thinking about stopping being published, or reducing the numbers of their issues, not to mention relying on an electronic copy only. There are dozens and even hundreds of such examples in the Arab world!!
There is a conviction among many Arab officials and stakeholders that the press itself is a self-power or soft power as some like to describe it, therefore it cannot be abandoned nor be subject to restructuring, particularly in relation to the nature of the issuing, and thus a lot of markets are daily flooded with a huge quantity of newspapers and magazines, which lack the mass effect, and are published only through government “mandatory subscriptions,” and the number of their unsold copies approaches the number of the printed copies, where talking about distribution numbers has in some cases become like a “military secret” for fear of the collapse of the magazine or newspaper’s share from the advertisements “cake”!!.
It is true that the press embodies one of the pillars of the cultural soft power of countries, but the fact that the pattern of power turns from an advantage into a burden is straining public budgets, and represents a question that needs to be answered convincingly!!
