The New Era of Online Journalism

Most of the leading newspapers stops printing and becoming web only or decreasing the frequncy of print.I came to know that The Christian Science Monitor published its final daily print edition on March 27th. Here arises one question "What Search Engine Marketers need to do? Become sad in the death of news papers or celebrate the upcoming era of online journalism? First let's review the facts objectively. To survive in todays business environment, all the news papaers are struggling. Some are decreasing the quantity of priting, Some have shout down and some became online only. For example, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News announced in December 2008 that both would cut back home delivery to only Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays starting in spring 2009. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer became web only. And the Rocky Mountain News and Ann Arbor News have shut down completely. In the past two years the ad revenue have fallen about 23%. Some news papers are in bankruptcy,and others have lost three-quarters of their value. From 2001, One in every five journalists lost therir job and the loss of job will become worst in 2009. So most of the news papers are now stops printing which closes an era and starting their online edition. It will cut off the cost of wooden pulp, printing, distributoion of the news paper. Take the case of "The Christian Science Monitor", two million individuals now engage with them online each month, about 40 times the number that have been subscribing to the print daily. They are linked deeply and extensively across the Internet. John Yemma, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor previously worked with Boston Globe's Boston.com website had the experience and led the efforts to transform the newsroom from print to multi-media. According to Newsknife, The Christian Science Monitor was one of the top six sources in Google News in February 2009, and #1 in terms of most appearances on the home page as a percentage of site total. So I think the Search Engine Marketers can celebrate the new era of online journalism. According to Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and cofounder of The Well, The Christian Science Monitor is now just bits flying around rather than atoms, but it remains a steady and reliable source of information about the world.