On Monday, WBIR’s Straight from the Heart guy Mike Donila spoke to the West Knox Republican Club. In his talk, he discussed upcoming 2016 elections and in one of his more insightful comments, he announced that newspapers are a dying medium. He pointed to the Times-Picayune that is a three day published paper, only available on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. The Times Picayune is located on nola.com He also pointed to the Birmingham News in Birmingham, Alabama. They are published Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. They have restructured they paper and the digital content are separate. The Birmingham News, Press Register of Mobile and The Huntsville Times are all on al.com. Hereis the announcement from May of 2012.
Knoxville print media has changed. Back in the 1990’s we had two daily papers. The Knoxville Journal as the morning paper and the Knoxville News Sentinel as the afternoon paper. The Knoxville Journal went away and then resurfaced as a weekly paper, the weekly entity is now gone. All communities had papers, The East Knox Area News still exist. The Holston Chronicle is gone. The Powell Post is gone as is the South Knox Times. A West Side paper is gone. The Halls Shopper which is now Shopper News is now owned by the parent company of the Sentinel and caters to what appears to be specific high advertising communities. The Farragut Press is an independently owned and long standing publication. So, after thinking about Donila’s comments and looking at the facts. I would concur, printing on paper is long outdated and not long for the journey.
The real question will be, what will the birds have in their cages to poop on? What will we use to wrap the fish that we catch? I suspect the USA Today will be around for awhile, so birds don’t begin fearing yet.
