I’ve been working for two newspapers simultaneously for nearly a year now, the North Wind and the Mining Journal. Yet whenever I bring it up, a comment is levied about how “paper’s dying” or something close to it. That is a widely believed ‘truth’ about newspapers, they are being left behind in the coming generations. Is the newspaper industry really in jeopardy?

My generation, Generation Z, and those that came after were born into a high level of technology. At our fingertips, we can research any topic at the click of a button and the load of a screen. From this point on fast and quick content has dominated these generations in the form of different social media platforms, perhaps that is the issue. 

I remember when studies were coming out regarding how Generation Z was the least-read generation in a long time, and that reading levels were dropping like tossed stones in water. Now information is coming out about the great reading capabilities of this generation. So social media and its easy fast content must have less of a hold than previously thought. 

But something must be up with the decline of the Newspaper, even if you just look locally. The Mining Journal, started in the late 1800s this historic newspaper that continues to print daily papers six days a week. Yet they used to do seven, and the Sunday paper was the biggest, up until 2019 when they made the change and cut it out. The decline happened much earlier. Before they used to have a Munising and Ishpeming bureau which closed in the early 2000s and late 1990s respectively. This is obvious loss of employees, stories to run and even a whole day which was once the biggest. 

That must be proof of something, and that is proof that the Mining Journal is not keeping up with the times. 

Looking at the North Wind, which printed off a weekly paper since 1972, it cut off its printed paper during the COVID-19 epidemic. Now it is strictly publishing on the web and its social media. Following this the North Wind has received a lot of views and interactions with its steady flow of content put out weekly, but sometimes the posts flow with the ever rushing tide of other social media posts; something that does not happen with a printed newspaper. 

These generations need a bit of both to really reach them. Social media to garner their attention and a printed paper to keep and hold. Printed newspapers have a special place in peoples hearts: business owners frame them and put them on walls to save a memory of their grand openings, parents save clippings of their little athletes when their names show up in the weekly sports section, event goers go through them to find out what is going on through the week and for me personally the most important thing was to see my name in print for the first time. 

Involvement with a newspaper is what makes it special, and while news paper may last forever atleast locally, the involvement with younger generations is the thing in jeopardy. Be it the lacking of attention drawing social media or a lack of younger workers. I fully believe that if a younger crowd were to be injected into the involvement of the news paper it would see a semi-revitilazation.