Newspapers Going The Way Of The Dodo? Maybe Not So Bad

This is certainly the comment of the week, from one Nicholas Taylor of Texas:

Capitalism is survival of the fittest. If a product or a company can't compete it goes the way of the dodo bird and the dinosaur. If the newspaper industry can not change and adapt to people's changing ways of obtaining information, they too will find themselves experiencing this same fate.

How many people still use 35mm cameras? How many people still use typewriters? Companies such as Kodak and Polaroid have abandoned their old products and are now focusing entirely on digital cameras and other electronic media devices. When typewriters started to become obsolete, such companies started to produce word processors, electronic calculators, PDAs, and other devices.

The newspaper industry is not any different from any other industry that exists under our capitalist system. It must either adapt or die. People's ways of obtaining information is changing. There are now 24 hour cable news networks and the world wide web has democratized information. Anyone can become a reporter of sorts by blogging about a event or "Twittering" about it. CNN has even capitalized on the ability of the common person to produce news with their iReport.